Twenty Year Drift
by Bella Winter Rose
Summary: Grissom's long-lost niece shows up the same time as the team gets involved with a grisly robbery. As the crime gets deeper, Grissom realizes his only living relative may be linked to it somehow - and that's only the beginning. Chapter 25 Is Finally Here!
1. The Photograph

Catherine Willows walked down the hall of CSI HQ a little slower than usual. She had a monster headache, one that felt like a parasite eating away at her skull from the inside out. This was not a headache Advil could cure. The only remedy was a good night's sleep. And she was more than ready for it.

She had just wrapped up a case involving the death of a young gay man named Roger, found hung from his bedroom rafters. The story was supposed to be that when he discovered he had AIDS, he hung himself in shame and depression. It had taken nearly two months to figure out that his lover, Kevin, had killed him in rage when he discovered he had contracted AIDS from Roger. It was proven to be indeed murder, made to look like suicide

It was a complicated case, with many intricacies and cover-ups. All Catherine saw when Kevin was lead away in handcuffs, was absolute pain. He had loved someone to death…literally.

The whole case had been agonizing for nearly everyone involved and now it was just catching up with Catherine and her headache. She had already arranged for Lindsey to stay over a friend's house for the night, so she was counting on a nice, peaceful time by herself. 

"God, Catherine," came an exasperated voice. "You look like a train wreck."

Catherine turned and smirked. "Thank you, Sara," she said to her still-perky coworker, jealous that Sara did not currently have bags under her eyes or a pale complexion. "And don't you look like Iman today," she added sarcastically.

Sara frowned and looked down at her wrinkled jeans and faded Harvard sweatshirt, "Heyyy…"

"I just cannot wait to crawl into bed and sleep forever. Just lie still in complete darkness…like I'm dead," Catherine made a sharp turn into the break room to get a last-minute cup of coffee. Sara followed like an obedient puppy on an invisible leash. Catherine envied her boundless energy. 

"I was hoping you might want to get a beer or something later."

"No offense, Sara, but I feel like I've got an eighteen-wheeler bursting through my forehead."

Catherine poured herself some coffee, popped a lid onto the Styrofoam cup and left the room. Sara continued to trail her so Catherine continued to speak,

"At least I'll have Lindsey out of the house for the night. No Spongebob Squarepants or Barbie for me tonight." 

Sara chuckled. 

"What are you doing tonight?" 

"Ah…now that the Roger Bells case is closed, I have a free night. That's rare for me, huh?" Sara smiled. "I dunno. Maybe I'll go to a movie, hang out at a club. Warrick's been trying to get me to come to this new place for him for a few weeks now. I might take him up on that offer now."

Catherine winced at the thought of throbbing techno music and strobe lights. "Well, I'm heading off. Good night, Sara." 

"G'night."

Sara watched Catherine leave, sighed to herself and went to find Warrick to tell him she did indeed feel like clubbing. 

All of a sudden, she felt a jab on her back, as if someone had mistaken her shoulder blade for a doorbell. If it was one thing Sara hated, it was being tapped or poked. She whipped around to see who was poking her like a steak and came face-to-face with a young woman. 

She was very petite, with a flawless hourglass-shaped body. Her hair, a shade or two lighter than chestnut, was pulled back into a ponytail revealing her widow's peak and sloping forehead. Her lips were thin and her hazel eyes were strikingly familiar. Her chin and cheeks were round, which made her look chubbier than she was. She wore a pair of faded boot cut jeans and a Motley Cruë tour shirt that had seen it's better days in 1983. On her feet were plain white tennis shoes and a purse that seemed to be made out of duct tape was on her shoulder.

"Can I help you?" Sara asked, wondering how the hell the girl got in here. But then she saw the yellow visitor's pass on her purse. 

"Do you work here?" the young woman asked in return.

Sara folded her arms over her chest, "That depends. Why?" 

"Oh. Um," the young woman dug into the back pocket of her jeans and pulled out a photograph. "I'm looking for someone. Could you help?"

"What so they look like?"

The girl held out the photograph for Sara to take, "I know this is old…but maybe you could help? Do you know this guy? I found out that he works here…I'd like to see him, please. If that's possible."

Sara took the photograph gingerly and scrutinized it. It was at least twenty years old, but something in the eyes, the face, screamed familiarity. She stared for a very long time before she realized who it was in this dated portrait. A light went on in her attic.

"This is…Gil Grissom."

The young woman gave a sigh of relief and smiled, "Yeah. So you _do_ know him."

"He's my supervisor. Yes. I know him," Sara handed back the picture to the young woman. "But the question is, how do _you_ know him?"

"Oh," she said in somewhat of a relieved voice. She looked at the picture adoringly and touched a finger to the subject's face. "I am his niece."


	2. The Lovers

"My niece?" 

"That's what she said," Sara explained to Gil Grissom, who, upon hearing the news, had to sit down at his desk and remove his glasses. "Her name is Chloe Haydn. She had this with her." She handed Grissom the old photograph that she had borrowed.

"God…this is from 1975," Grissom said when he saw it.

Sara peered over his shoulder and smiled. It looked like a high-school graduation portrait. He wore a suit and tie and stared at the camera intensely. "You look like John F. Kennedy."

"How did she…?"

"Grissom," Sara said softly, putting an affectionate hand on her supervisor's shoulder. "I think you should meet her. See her. Take a glance—"

"Why?"

"Well," Sara shrugged, "I'm pretty curious myself."

Grissom was silent for a long while. Sara grew uncomfortable with the stillness in the room. One of his Giant Hissing Cockroaches began to hiss. It began to creep Sara out. 

"Grissom?"

"Hm?"

"She's waiting."

*

"My name is Chloe Gabrielle Haydn. Chloe for the goddess of springtime; Gabrielle for my mother's mother. And _your_ mother, of course, Mr. Grissom."

"My mother's first name is Julia," Grissom corrected curtly. 

"No. I distinctly remember being told it was Gabrielle. My mother wouldn't make a mistake like that."

Sara, sitting in the corner, became confused. She too was positive that Grissom's mother was named Gabrielle. Then she realized this: he was just making sure Chloe was being truthful. 

"Either way, Miss Haydn," Grissom said, not completely recognizing this young woman's surname. "You must be mistaken. I have no nieces or nephews."

"Or siblings," Sara interjected. "Right?"

Grissom sighed and sat back.

"Right, Grissom? You're an only child."

"I never said that."

"Chloe," Sara turned to the girl. "You should have a great story to go along with this claim."

"Of course I do," Chloe said, a little insulted. 

"Then by all means," Grissom said, "enlighten us. Tell us what you know."

Chloe turned to Grissom and directed most of the story to him,

"In 1978, in Marina Del Ray, California, a girl fell in love with an older boy. He wasn't that much older…only three years. He wasn't the greatest example in the world—he smoked and drank, was known as the bad kid—but he loved her back. 

"Anyway, they were madly in love but because of his reputation, their love was not permitted by the girl's mother, especially since they were fifteen-and-eighteen at this time. 

"They found secret ways to be with each other. They snuck out and had friends cover for them. It worked for a long time until the girl's mother found out. 

"She was furious, the mother. She put the girl under house arrest, despite the screams and cries and protests. 

"A month later, the girl's mother went to awaken her daughter for school, but the girl was not in her room. Her valuables were gone, along with some suitcases and clothes. She later discovered that the girl and her boyfriend ran away together. 

"The mother was so furious that she decided to let her daughter go, and figured that eventually, in a short while, she would come crawling back. The mother decided that if and when her daughter came back, the girl would be severely punished and sent away. 

"But the daughter never returned. She and her boyfriend went to Arizona and they had a child. That child was me."

"Mr. Grissom," Chloe said, leaning in. "My mother's name was Emmaline Rosamond Grissom, called Rose for short. She was the girl in my story and your younger sister."

There was a static-like silence in the room once Chloe finished her story. Grissom sat back and chewed on the earpiece of his glasses. Chloe wrung her hands like a damp shirt. Sara felt as if she wanted to speak, words dancing an objection tango on her tongue, but she swallowed them quickly. She wondered who would speak first and when.

Three minutes later, it was Grissom. 

"Sara, could you leave Miss Haydn and myself alone for a few moments, please?"

"But Grissom," Sara blurted. "You don't have a sis—"

"Sara," he said, harsher than she'd ever heard him speak to anyone in years. 

Hurt and confused, Sara backed out of Grissom's office and closed the door.


	3. The Details

"Mr. Grissom," Chloe begged once Sara was gone. "Please. Believe me."

"Miss Haydn, you do know I'm a scientist?" Grissom asked.

"No. I don't really know much about you. That's why I'm here," she admitted softly.

"If you're lying to me, I know many ways to find the truth. That's my job."

"What kind of ways?"

"DNA testing for one. If you are my niece, DNA will tell me, not you."

Chloe bit her lip and tried not to cry.

"When were you born?"

"Pardon?"

"When were you born?" he repeated as if she were a dumb child.

"Oh…April fifteenth, 1981."

He raised an eyebrow, "You're twenty-two? My sister would have been very young to give birth to you in 1981."

"She was seventeen, sir. She was already pregnant when she left home."

Grissom felt his blood freeze. Yes…he had suspected this much. "What's your father's name?"

"George. George Samuel Haydn." 

The name now rung a bell. Of course, Haydn was Chloe's surname but George Haydn…he'd known a George Haydn, once upon a time. This could not possibly be the same person. 

"Where is your real mother?" Grissom snapped. "I would love to speak to her. This should clear up this whole situation and confirm that you're just an unhappy runaway and not some con-artist out to scam an older man out of money."

"If you want to find my mother, call Sunset Rest Cemetery in Phoenix, Arizona."

Grissom wilted on this inside but held an icy exterior. "Beg pardon?"

"My mother is dead," Chloe said, trying not to scream out of frustration and anger. "I never knew my mother. She died of ecclampsia during an emergency C-section on April fifteenth, 1981."

"And your father?"

"Killed in a car crash last winter."

"I have nobody left, Mr. Grissom," she said. "All I have now are Walker and Shane."

"Who are they?"

"My boyfriend and my son…they're really my only family. Before my father died, he told me about my mother's family. It was something he never talked about. Told me I needed something to pass down to Shane. He said that my mother was from California, came from a set of divorced parents, had an older brother—one she loved very much, one she looked up to. He couldn't remember his name," Chloe paused. "So I did a little research. Some genealogy programs and internet people-finders."

Grissom sighed and stood behind his desk. "Stay here," he ordered. 

"I never knew the sound of her voice…I never knew what color eyes she had…I didn't even know her birthday," Chloe said, more to herself than anyone.

"Hazel. Rose's eyes were hazel," Grissom said, "like the color of autumn. Her birthday was November twenty-second. And her voice…was as sweet as Tchaikovsky's _Waltz of the Flowers_."

He left without saying another word and just as he expected, Sara was waiting outside, her ear practically to the door. 

"Well?" she asked like an eager child.

"I need coffee and Greg," was all Grissom said. 

"In that order?"

The pair walked down to Greg's lab, where the overworked scientist was still at his microscope. He looked up and smiled as he saw Sara saunter on in.

"Hey, Sara. I thought you went home," he said. 

"Something came up," Sara shrugged, nodding towards Grissom.

"We need a blood test," Grissom said. "Sara, bring Chloe in here, please."

Sara left again, feeling miffed. 

"What's up, Grissom?" Greg asked. "I have a lot of work to do…I had to cancel a date with Casey just because I—"

"Blood test."

"For what?"

Grissom paused, "Someone. A girl. She may be related to me."

"Related? How?"

"Greg, you're a lab tech. Not Oprah," Grissom sighed. He held out his hand. "Pick a finger."

Sara returned with Chloe a few minutes later. Greg performed the test with a sterilized needles, taking blood samples from Grissom and Chloe. He put them into his machine, pressed some buttons and closed the lid. Then he picked up _Surfer's Weekly _and sat back.

"It'll be a few hours."

While they waited for the results, no one spoke. It was eerily quiet—except for the low hum of Greg's machine. 


	4. The Tale

The results, Greg had said, were positive. 

Chloe and Grissom were indeed related.

Reactions were different around the room. Sara just shook her head in disbelief. She saw and heard weird things all the time but this was one that definitely took the cake. Chloe suppressed tears of joy with a tight-lipped smile. A few trickled down her cheek. Grissom, on the other hand, just sighed and turned to her.

"I'm sorry, Chloe," he said. Then without another word or a gesture of welcome, he left the lab. 

Chloe looked as if she'd been slapped. Sara didn't know what to say.

"I don't understand," Chloe said, wiping her eyes, though no tears surfaced. "I thought…he might be…why is he so…so frigid?"

"Well," Sara, the voice of experience explained, "that's just the way he is. He's a nice guy, but when he's cold like that, he's just being formal. Just being Grissom, really."

"But—"

"Chloe, he deals with people every day. People who kill; commit crimes. It's just the way he acts around strangers."

"I'm obviously not a stranger."

"But to him, you are. Maybe he just needs some time to get to know you, figure things out in his own time," Sara sighed. "Maybe he's being shy."

Chloe raised an eyebrow and when she did, Sara was overwhelmed at how much she looked like Grissom. "Shy?" she asked, "Miss Sidle, my four-year-old is shy. Mr. Grissom is being downright cruel."

*

He was staring at his jar of cockroaches. Head in his hands, glasses off. 

"Grissom?" Sara stepped into his office slowly, carefully, like Odysseus trying not to awaken the slumbering Cyclops. 

"Go away, please," Grissom mumbled. 

"No," Sara said firmly. "Grissom, what was that all about? You didn't even look her in the eye. You shattered her when you made your swift exit and I was left picking up the pieces. She thinks you're some kind of monster now."

Grissom looked up sharply. "I did look her in the eye, Sara. And once I did, I couldn't anymore." 

"Why?" 

"Because all I saw…was Rose."

Sara slumped into the chair across from Grissom at his desk.

"Everything Chloe said was true."

Sara was stunned. She wanted to speak, but Grissom looked as if he wanted to say more. Sara feared that if she said anything, Grissom would stop and she would never know anything. Since Grissom was very secretive about his private life, him opening up like this was a milestone.

"Rose was my sister," Grissom began. "We were very close from the day she was born, but we were very different. We were, as my mother said, like night and day—I was night of course, being dark and secretive. Rose was day, with her sunny cheerfulness. 

"I was newly six when she was born, after my parents' divorce. Mother called her 'the pleasant surprise'. With our father gone, I appointed myself her guardian. I followed her around when she learned how to walk, making sure she didn't hurt herself. I helped her with her schoolwork and taught her how to read. 

"Rose was intelligent, but I didn't think it very wise of her to take up with George. Mother just plain didn't like him, but I knew his reputation. He'd been arrested on several accounts of robbery and DUI, and once on possession. I warned her time and time again but she spent a good amount of time convincing me she could change him. 

"By this time I was working my way through college and came home on the weekends to watch out for her. It got so that I began to spy on them when they were together, following her. If he should touch her in the wrong way or raise a hand to strike her…I wanted to be ready to pounce."

Sara's eyes widened, trying to imagine Grissom beating the crap out of his sister's boyfriend, "So what happened?" 

Grissom sighed heavily, "Rose found out that I'd been spying. She was livid. I'd never seen her like this before, pacing back and forth, her arms crossed over her chest.

"'How dare you,' she spat at me. 'How dare you follow me and spy on me? I can take care of myself. I don't care what you say or what Mother says.'

"I tried to explain that I was only doing what was best for her and she laughed in my face. She told me to leave her alone.

"'You have to let me go, Gil,' she scolded of me. 'You're not my parent. You can't tell me what to do and you can't tell me not to see George. He is my oxygen. I can't live without oxygen and I can't live without George.'

"When I saw her so distraught, I apologized for my rash actions and offered my services in anyway I could, as a 'big brother'.

"She asked if she could use my window to sneak out of. She explained that the slope of our roof was beside it, making an easier getaway for when she went out late to meet George. I unenthusiastically agreed. Mine was the last window she ever climbed out of.

"Reluctantly Rose and George became somewhat of a Romeo and Juliet. Every night Rose would sneak out of my window, whether I was awake or not and by morning she would be back in bed. 

"One night our mother found out what Rose had been doing. It was the most furious I'd ever seen her. With her otosclerosis, she didn't speak much and preferred to sign, especially with Rose and I. But when I heard her screaming at Rose, I felt frozen. My feet stuck to the floor. Rose was crying hysterically, begging her to let her see George, but Mother was relentless. She kept Rose under lock and key after that. Rose lasted about a week without sneaking out to see George until one night, very late, she woke me up.

"'Gil,' she said, 'Gil, I _have_ to leave. I can't stay in this hell anymore. I'm going away with George; we're going to get married.'

"I begged her to wait a year or so, until she was eighteen. Then she could marry George legally and mother wouldn't have any say.

"'No,' Rose protested. 'It _has_ to be _now_. Now or never. I can't stay any longer.'

"Well, she said it so firmly that all I could do was unlock my window and go back to bed. I guess it wasn't until I awoke the next morning that I realized Rose was really gone. I recalled what she had said the previous night, that she had to leave now or never. I toyed with the possibility that the reason she was so eager to get away was that she might be pregnant with George's child. But I shrugged this likelihood off, thinking Rose wouldn't _let_ herself get pregnant. But if she was, I couldn't help but agree with her actions—Mother would definitely have killed her.

"When Mother discovered Rose gone, she was very smug, claiming she would come crawling back within days. Mother waited for Rose every day for nearly two weeks…but she never came back. Eventually, Mother gave up waiting and convinced herself Rose was gone for good. She accepted and from that day on, she forbid any mention of Rose.

"And now here's Chloe…coming up to claim what her mother had lost."

Sara was nearing tears, "If what Chloe said was true, why aren't you accepting her into your life? For God's sake, Grissom, _you have a family_!"

"I'm not a family man, Sara," Grissom explained calmly. 

"No one's asking you to raise her, Grissom!" Sara practically screamed. "She's a grown woman! With a child, no less! She's as lonely as you are, all she wants is a companion, not a guardian! Take her out to dinner, ask her questions about her life. I'm sure you're curious."

Grissom chewed on the earpiece of his glasses again, the taste of wax coating his tongue, mulling over what Sara had said.

Sara stood, infuriated at her supervisor. She was seeing red over how childish he was acting now. 

"Fine," Grissom replied. He stood from his chair. "Set it up."

"Set what up?"

"It's your suggestion, Sara. Set it up. Make a reservation somewhere for a quarter to eight. Tell Chloe."

"But I'm—"

Putting on his glasses, he announced, "I have to find Catherine." With that, Grissom stalked out of his office, leaving Sara in a state of perplexity.

*

"Grissom! Hey, Grissom!" Nick Stokes jogged up alongside and tapped Grissom's arm. He turned sharply, nearly giving Nick a paper cut with the file he was holding.

"Yes?" 

"Ah, Greg and I? We were wondering…"

"I don't want to hear any sentence from Nick Stokes that begins with 'Greg and I were wondering'," Grissom said, and kept walking. 

Groaning, Nick continued to follow, "C'mon, Grissom, I already worked out today…can't you slow down for a sec? I'm gettin' a stitch." 

"Nick, just talk. I can hear you." 

"Well…there's a rumor. Is it true you have a daughter?"

Grissom froze and turned. He gave Nick one of those famous annoyed-and-baffled looks that were usually reserved for Sara when she said something stupid, "No."

"Oh…thank God…you stopped," Nick gasped. "Well, that's what's going around."

"Discourage the story, please, Nick."

"Oh-kay. I was just—"

"One of these days, Nicky, you're going to break your neck jumping to conclusions," Grissom gave Nick an icy stare and stalked off.

Nick didn't follow. Just stood in disbelief, hands on his hips.


	5. The Dinner

Chloe was waiting outside Il Giardino when Grissom pulled up in his car. She was wearing sleek black slacks and a camel-brown long-sleeved shirt with a V-neck. She was leaning up against a white Dodge Neon, the yellow light from Il Giardino's awning reflecting off her face. A child was clinging to her neck and a tall, lanky young man with feathered brown hair had his hand on Chloe's back. 

Grissom parked his car down the lot from where Chloe and her family were standing. He got out, approached them slowly, not wanting to disrupt their moment. Chloe seemed like a natural mother. The way she held her son, the way her son clung to her like Velcro. 

He didn't say anything until he was close enough to look into her eyes as he spoke to her. Her eyes were the color of autumn, like Rose's. 

"Good evening, Chloe," he said. 

Chloe flashed a smile, "Oh. Mr. Grissom…this is my boyfriend Walker and my son Shane. They won't be joining us, obviously. I just wanted them to meet you."

"Hello, Mr. Grissom," Walker said. He held out a hand for Grissom to shake.

"Gil, please," he answered as he shook Walker's hand. "And this is your son?" 

"Our son," Walker corrected proudly.

"Shane," Chloe said. "Shane…this is Gil Grissom. He's a friend. Of Momma's."

Four-year-old Shane looked up at Grissom. His eyes were the same color as Chloe's, but his hair was wavy dark brown like Walker. He was timid; gave one look at Grissom and buried his face in Chloe's shoulder. Obviously Shane was uninterested in Momma's friend but Grissom was charmed and gave a rare smile for the young boy. 

"Shall we?" Grissom said to Chloe.

"Yeah," Chloe unwound Shane from her neck and put him in Walker's arms and kissed both boys on the cheek before following Grissom into Il Giardino. 

Standing inside as they waited for their table, Grissom couldn't help stealing glances at this girl, his niece. Yes, she was definitely Rose's daughter: hazel eyes, sandy hair and what his mother had called the "family mouth": thin, pale pink and expressive. 

This was his niece. It was a word that left a strange taste in his mouth, an exotic dish, a rarity. _He_ had a _niece_. And his niece had a son. And he was not only an _uncle_, but a _great-uncle_! Grissom was almost giddy and excited by this, toying with the idea of spending the holidays with Chloe and Shane at Thanksgiving and Christmas and perhaps birthdays, catching up on twenty-two year ridge of history.

Embarrassed, he quickly pushed the idea out of his mind. That wasn't like him, that wasn't what he expected out of life. He _wanted_ to be alone, to concentrate on his work and continue being the best at what he did. He convinced himself slowly that he didn't need family and by the time he and Chloe were seated, Grissom considered her no more than a stranger. 

Sara had picked a quaint Italian place, with cherry wood chairs and wood panels, green-and-white tablecloths, candles on the tabletops and Gentileschi and da Vinci prints on the wall. Opera played softly over the sound system.

"So, Chloe…" Grissom took a deep breath. _Ask her questions_, Sara advised him before he left. _And be nice_.

"So, Mr. Grissom," Chloe gave a shy smile and bit her lower lip. 

Grissom himself gave a small smile, "You don't have to call me 'mister'."

Chloe blushed. "I don't know what else to call you."

His smile widened a bit. "Just Gil is fine," he assured her, not ready to have the title "uncle" bestowed upon himself. 

"Okay," Chloe chucked. "Just Gil."

"And just Chloe."

"Yes."

There was a titter of nervous laughed and silence crept up on them like ivy.

"So, Gil," Chloe said, getting a taste of Grissom's first name. "Do I…do I remind you of Rose at all?"

Grissom pursed his lips and considered. Then he nodded. "Somewhat. You have her eyes and her mouth. But Rose and I had the same mouth, so I guess you have my mouth too."

Grissom surprised himself with how much he babbled. If this is what family did to you, he didn't like it. 

"And you have her hair," Grissom concluded. "And her sunshiny demeanor."

"So I'm a lot like her?" Chloe asked happily.

"In a physical sense," Grissom shrugged. "What college did you go to? You _did_ go to college, right?" 

"Of course. I went to University of Phoenix."

"What did you major in?"

"Nursing. That's what I've always wanted to do, be a nurse. Ever since I was little. My dad got me a doctor bag and everything. I'll be starting nursing school in the fall."

"You're not so much like Rose after all, then."

Chloe was disappointed. She frowned, "Why?"

"Rose's ambition," Grissom admitted, "was to be Wonder Woman."

Chloe laughed out loud. "Does that make you Superman?"

"Ask my team, they'll answer that for you," Grissom replied. "Though I'm afraid I'd be compared more to the Green Goblin."

They shared a laugh and the waiter came by. They ordered drinks from the wet bar—white wine for Grissom and a Jack Rose for Chloe. 

The newly reunited niece and uncle shared casual discussions, rediscovering themselves as they told story after story about their lives up until this point, trying to fill their relationship gap. They told stories about school, about jobs, about childhood. 

Grissom found it increasingly easier to relate to Chloe about himself now that he'd discovered she was interested in the medical profession. He found his shell breaking as he spoke about collecting dead animals for "science projects", about his job at the morgue and mostly about his relationship with Rose. He told Chloe how he taught Rose how to ride a bike and not to be afraid of bugs. She was the only girl he knew confident enough to touch a spider or a cockroach and even kept some roaches as pets. It was her idea to get Grissom into racing them. 

Grissom didn't tell Chloe, however, how he tried to prevent Rose and George's relationship and how much their mother despised George. Instead he told about Rose and him and their brother/sister rituals, like bedtime stories and how Rose would tag along on Grissom's bike rides to find road kill. Grissom even spoke briefly about one of his girlfriends he'd met quite by accident at college, a French Canadian beauty queen named Nicolette who had taught him the art of rappelling. 

Chloe mainly told stories about her father, George. Most of what she told made Grissom think twice of all the bad things he or his mother ever said about him—he appeared to be a very loving father to Chloe. She recounted when, as a toddler, George would play country songs on his guitar for her and she would dance for hours. He had taught her how to play the guitar at the age of seven and trained her vocally at the age of nine. He worked at a ranch and taught her how to ride horses there, and taught her how to sew and cook. 

Grissom began to feel regret about hating George so much as he listened to his niece speak so fondly of him. After describing the night George was killed in the car accident, Chloe changed directions and explained her complicated relationship with Walker and how at the early stages of their relationship he was controlling and verbally abusive. She swore he changed severely when she became pregnant with Shane. He was more gentle, hardly if ever raised his voice and swore never to hurt either Shane or Chloe. 

"So where are you three living now?" Grissom asked, trying to ignore all thoughts of Nicolette, who was creeping back into his memories now that he'd resurrected her from the ashes.

"Oh, we're still in Arizona," Chloe said, playing with her glass tumbler. "We're actually in the house my father and I lived in. It's a nice place, lots of kids for Shane to play with. You should come and visit us some time," she added. "My mother is buried there."

Grissom nodded, pretending to consider. He didn't want to see Rose's grave. 

"Now that I've found you," Chloe continued, "I'd like to meet my grandmother. Your mother. And my mother's, of course."

"I'm sure she'd like that," Grissom lied. He honestly didn't know what his mother would think of Chloe. He knew what she thought of George and Rose and their relationship, but Chloe was another level entirely. "She lives in Marina Del Rey, where Rose and I grew up. It's quite a drive."

"Maybe the two of us could go?"

"I'd have to take off from work…"

"Oh," Chloe sat back. "That's okay, I guess. Walker and I could—"

"I could go with you," Grissom jumped in. "I'd just have to take off from work. I don't really like to miss it, but I've got a few use-them-or-lose-them sick days."

"Walker and I will be in Vegas for two weeks. That's plenty of time."

"I suppose so."

Chloe then asked the question Grissom had been asking himself, "What do you think her reaction will be? Your mother, I mean. To me."

Uncertain, Grissom gave her his best possible answer, "She'll definitely be interested, that's for sure. She wasn't too…happy, shall we say, about your parents."

Chloe's eyes went downcast, "So I hear. My father used to talk about the trouble they went though to see each other. He thanked you, however, for helping their relationship."

"Thanked me?" Grissom was amused. 

"He said that my mother used your window to sneak out of every night," Chloe said excitedly, like a child discovering top-secret information. 

Grissom nodded, "It was the least I could do. I didn't want her breaking her neck climbing out _her_ window."

"I guess you could call them Romeo and Juliet, huh?"

Grissom reached over and for the first time, made physical contact with his niece. "Yes, Chloe," he said, squeezing her hand that was resting on the table. "That's exactly what I would call them."


	6. The Choice

****

March, 1982

Gil Grissom was, for lack of a better cliché, was the happiest guy in California today. As he signed in at the morgue, he felt like whistling. He'd seriously never been this jovial since he began working at the coroner's four years ago. He had to ask himself why he was so elated at a job that revolved around death. It wasn't until he sat down at his desk to review last night's autopsy reports that he remembered the reason why: and her name was Nicolette de L'eau. 

Nicolette and Gil had been together for exactly five years to the day. He had made plans for that night. He wanted to take her out, make her feel special…and propose marriage. 

Gil opened one of the drawers of his desk and found the gray box containing the ring he'd selected for Nicolette. He ran his fingers over the box, sending a picture to his brain. It was a 24K gold band with a one karat diamond perched on top, flanked by a heart-shaped diamond on either side. It was genius in its simplicity. Naturally, he didn't want a ring so beautiful that it would overshadow Nicolette herself. 

Ah, Nicolette. She was Gil's first serious relationship. Sure, he'd had a few girlfriends in high school and a few in college before he met Nicolette.

They met at UCLA when Gil was a junior and Nicolette was a freshman. She had gotten hopelessly lost on her first day on campus on her way to a class and asked him for directions while he was reading beneath a tree. When he heard her sweet voice and looked up at her, he swore she was an angel. They got to talking and discovered they shared some interests and the same ambitions. 

Nicolette de L'eau was a French-Canadian beauty with strawberry-blonde hair and eyes the color of the desert sky at dusk: a mysterious mix between violet and blue. They were never the same color twice. Her skin was flawless alabaster and just beneath her collarbone was a birthmark Gil's lips had kissed more than once. She was twenty-three and smoked flavored cigarettes her sister mailed to her from their small town Quebec, Peu de Pré. She sent monthly video messages to her aunt Violette in France. Her gentle French accent became heavier if she was mad or excited. She was an intern now at the LA County Coroner's Office, under Gil's watch. She taught Gil how to rock climb and speak conversational French while Gil taught her about butterfly species and how to lift footprints using tinting paper and a car battery. 

Thinking about Nicolette made Gil crazy. She was his drug, a lifting psychedelic acid he dropped on his tongue that made the colors of the world swirling and bright. 

Gil had to find her, see her, be in her presence for five minutes before starting any work. He wanted to touch her skin, feel her hair and maybe have a quickie in the broom closet, something Nicolette enjoyed. They had almost gotten caught a couple of times but it was what she lived for—the thrill of being caught. 

Gil walked down the hall, nodding and greeting those he knew; politely smiling to those he didn't. 

"Morning, Gil," greeted Sam, one of Gil's co-workers. He worked in the lab, running blood tests and such. He was heavyset and tall, over six feet, with dark hair and glasses and an olive skin tone.

"Morning," Gil replied. "Have you seen Nicolette?"

"Uh, yeah," Sam grinned, almost laughing. Gil and Nicolette's relationship was like a high school romance: everyone knew about it, but nobody spoke about it. "She's with Martha in Exam Room One."

"Thanks." Gil hurried off without another word. 

He wound his way around corridors, dodging further conversation with anyone now that he had his destination until he came to the examination rooms.

"Gil?"

Martha Dillon, one of Gil's colleagues, stepped out of one of the exam rooms. 

"Hello," Gil smiled at her. Martha was like his older sister, kind hearted and generous, always ready with a smile that made you feel like when a warm cup of coffee was spreading through your insides. She was in her late thirties, blonde and blue-eyed with sharp features that spoke of Scandinavian decent. 

"Are you looking for Mademoiselle Nicolette?" Martha joked. 

"How'd you guess?"

Martha put a soft hand on his cheek, "Silly. You have a pep in your step, of course. Twinkle in those pretty blue eyes of yours. That smile."

Gil blushed. "Is it that obvious?"

Rolling her eyes heavenward, Martha's grin remained on her face, "You're in love, Gil. It's always obvious."

Gil chuckled. 

"_Love is a many splendored thing_," she warbled, just to make Gil laugh again. "Aw, Gil, you dog you. Nicolette's just writing up some notes on Henry Williams's autopsy. I'm sure she'd welcome your liveliness."

"Thanks, Martha," Gil gave her a quick peck on the cheek. 

"Go get 'em, tiger," Martha laughed. She watched Gil, like a teenaged boy, disappear into room one. She shook her head, grinned and went for a cup of coffee. 

"Nicolette?"

Gil found his gorgeous girlfriend, in her white coat with jeans and a soft yellow shirt underneath, sitting beside Henry Williams's body. But she was not taking notes. Instead, she was sobbing profusely, her hands shaking so much she could barely get a grip on her pen.

"Nicolette?" Gil was alarmed and rushed to her side, embracing her. "Nicolette, are you alright?" 

"Gil, thank God," Nicolette wrapped her arms around his. "I'm so scared…" she sobbed into his shoulder. 

"Of what, baby? Of what?" Gil stroked her beautiful hair, the morning sun turning it more red.

"Please don't hate me but—" Nicolette cut herself off.

"But what?"

"I…" she opened her mouth but no words came out, just a dry squeak.

"Nicolette," Gil said firmly, "tell me."

"I can't. You'll get angry."

"I promise I won't."

"You _have_ to promise!"

"Nicolette, I just did. Tell me."

Nicolette hesitated so Gil prompted her, "Don't hate you but what?"

Inhaling and then giving a deep, shuddery sigh, Nicolette replied, "…but I'm pregnant, Gil."

Gil didn't hear the words coming out of her mouth. He was concentrating on how beautifully she said his name: _Geel_. Hard "G", drawn-out "I" and short "L". The French accent made it sound so sexy, so enticing, so—

"Gil, did you hear me? I'm pregnant! With your baby!" 

Yes. He had heard. He didn't want to but he did. He disentangled his arms from her body and felt a swell in his chest and swallowed back tears. The next words out of his mouth made him feel like a stereotypical asshole boyfriend:

"Are you positive it's mine?"

"Gil!!" 

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I know that was really shallow…"

"What am I suppost to do?" Nicolette dropped her hands to her lap. "I can't have a baby. I'm not ready."

"Well, Nicolette, you're not the only one having the baby," Gil knelt beside her and put his hands on her knee. "It's…it's mine too. Nicolette, haven't you thought about this? We've been together for a long time. We…we can get married, raise this child together. Husband, wife; mother, father." He put his hand to her stomach, where his child was hiding behind. "Marry me, Nicolette."

Nicolette pursed her lips and tossed her hair back. Tears glistened on her cheeks and Gil felt an uncontrollable urge to kiss each little griefhoney away, his lips to her perfect skin. 

"What do you say?" Gil prodded. "A baby with your gorgeous strawberry hair, my striking blue eyes and your accent. We can do it, Nicolette."

Nicolette stroked Gil's cheek with the back of her hand, which was slightly rough with stubble and Gil felt faint. She smelled of licorice flowers. 

She hesitated before answering, those cerulean eyes of his boring holes into her, their intense gaze encouraging her to answer.

"I'm sorry Gil," she sighed finally. "But no."

Gil felt his heart tear in two. "No?"

"Marriage? A baby? Gil, I cannot do that. That's not the life I want and I _know_ that's not what _you_ want—"

"You're right. It's not what I want," Gil said, taking Nicolette's porcelain hands in his. "But if it means a lifetime with you, then it's the only thing in the world I really _do_ want."

Exhaling slowly like a beaten balloon, Nicolette shook her head, "Talk all you want, Gil, but I don't believe you."

Defeated, Gil sighed heavily and mournfully rested his head in her lap. "You've heard what I want to do," he said, looking up at her. "What do _you_ want to do?"

Nicolette ran her fingers through his hair. "You're graying already. See what I've done to you in five years, _mon cher_?"

Gil picked his head up sharply, "Don't change the subject. Answer me, Nicolette." He picked himself off the floor and pulled up a stool. He sat across from his beloved and looked her in those peculiar eyes. There was a world inside them, a mythical universe behind those irises the color of the desert sky at dusk.

"_Homme diabolique_," she cursed at him, angrily. "I can't tell you want I want. You would only hate me."

Gil was unnerved by her outburst. "I couldn't hate you."

"Then…you'll let me get an abortion?"

Gil felt his heart skip a beat. What could he say? He wanted to scold her, tell her "no" as if speaking to a dog. He wanted to yell and scream at such a suggestion. How _could_ she suggest something like that when here he was, more than willing to marry her and take care of her and the child. Abortions were for those who were alone, who had no other choice, not for the lucky ones like Nicolette, if one could call her that. 

Instead, Gil swallowed hard and replied, "If that is what you really want."

"I do."

Gil hung his head and prayed for his tears to stay corked up. 

"I'm sorry, Gil. But I don't want this baby. Listen, I'm almost ten weeks. It's now or never. So I'll be going as soon as possible."

Gil couldn't help but agree, "I understand. I completely understand." With that, he got up from the stool and began to exit. 

"But do you agree?" Nicolette spoke up. 

Gil turned to her and stared a long while. He noticed she looked younger than she really was. "I can't answer that, Nicolette."

Gil returned to his office and locked the door. He went to his desk drawer and found the gray box containing the now-useless ring. He put it in his hand and threw it across the room. It hit the wall with a _thunk _and fell to the tile floor. Gil put his head in his hands and rested his elbow on the desk. Then, before he drowned in maddening sadness, he uncorked his bottle of forbidden tears.

That was the last time Gil and Nicolette saw each other. The next day she never showed up for work, nor the next nor the next. It was rumored she had quit and been transferred and before Gil knew it, he was being transferred himself, to Las Vegas. The only person left he felt was worth saying good-bye to was Martha.

"Gil, honey," Martha said sadly, pulling Gil away from the going-away party the other coroners had wholeheartedly put together for him. "I know you're hurting. You've been missing Nicolette something awful, don't you?"

"No," he said quickly. 

"Yes, you are."

Gil didn't want to admit Martha was right, but he didn't want to argue. These four years without his beautiful Nicolette were empty of emotion. Gil began to feel like a robot, eating, working and moving mechanically. He wasn't sure if he had a heart anymore.

"Just promise me one thing," Martha hugged her "little brother". "If you find a lovely young girl in Vegas and want to marry her, invite me to the wedding."

Gil gave a small chuckle for the first time in years. "I promise."

"Have a _big_ wedding, with lots of flowers and people. No crappy little nuptial in a plastic Vegas chapel. I don't want to get a postcard in two weeks saying you got hitched by an Elvis impersonator," she scolded. 

"You won't."

"And then, make me the godmother of your first child?" Martha added as a joke.

This time, Gil laughed out loud. "I'll think on that."

"And play a few games of craps for me."

"I don't gamble, Martha."

"But _I_ do," Martha pulled the corners of her mouth down. "Last time I played a decent game of craps was at my sister's wedding all the way back east in Atlantic City three years ago. To top it off, Jake _hates_ Vegas, he'd never go with me. And it's no fun going by yourself."

Gil sighed. "Don't I know it."

Before Gil left the LA County Coroner's Office, he did one last thing. After he had packed up all the knickknacks in his office, he wrote out a check for five hundred dollars and put Nicolette's name on it. He left it on Martha's desk. He assumed she would know what to do with it. 

He left for Las Vegas early the next morning, leaving behind in California a futile engagement ring and enough hurt to fill the San Andreas Fault.

****

Present Day

Grissom awoke suddenly in a cold sweat with an ache in his shoulders and lower back. The clock on his night table read four-forty AM. It was the first time he'd been able to sleep peacefully since his surgery and here he was, awake and restless.

He sat up in bed and realized he was clutching his sheets and his duvet was entangled around and beneath his legs. Grissom groaned, reached over and groped for his glasses. He put them on and let his eyes adjust to the extreme darkness. The only light in the room was the dim red of the heat lamp from his tarantula terrarium. His throat was very dry; he couldn't swallow. The first thing that came to his mind was a name he hadn't spoken or thought of in more than twenty years.

Nicolette de L'eau. 

The name echoed around the room like a lost ghost. A chill went up Grissom's spine and he didn't want to go back to sleep as the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

After the episode with Nicolette had put him through way back when, it wasn't long before he established himself as an emotionless robot or the Tin Man with a Heart or any other name he had been called by staff and/or suspects due to his iciness and sarcastic, hard-ass attitude. 

Grissom sat up in bed and curled his knees to his chest, leaning against the headboard, listening to his own breathing. He wondered what he would be like had Nicolette married him and they'd had their child. Perhaps he would be less callous, less harsh, less of a work-a-holic insomniac. More concerned about the welfare of children involved in the cases. Basically, he would be more like Catherine.

Rubbing his eyes, Grissom pushed all thoughts of Nicolette out of his mind. Then his cell phone rang, making his heart jump.

He answered with a raspy, "Grissom" and returned to his Tin Man persona. 


	7. The Scene

Gil Grissom was sleepy-eyed and lethargic when he arrived on the scene that had pulled him from his apartment at the dead of night. He tried to hide it and did a good job, surprised and pleased with himself that he had slept at all.

A robbery of a 24-hour convenience store called Stop-n-Go had ended in three DB's and a missing cache of two hundred dollars. Catherine on the phone had said the scene was "red", meaning there was a lot of bloodshed. Blood didn't ruffle Grissom at the least, but it was always nice to have a heads-up, especially at five AM.

"Hey, Gil," Catherine greeted. She was waiting outside the door of the Stop-n-Go with her field kit in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. 

"Good morning," Grissom said tersely as he ducked under the crime scene tape. 

"You look like crap," she said, jokingly. She could tell by the way his eyes drooped that he hadn't gotten much sleep. 

"Thank you. Where's Nick?"

"On his way; Brass's behind him."

Grissom tucked his CSI cap in his jacket pocket. "What's the scene?"

"Well, an older gentleman walked into the Stop-n-Go on an early-morning run for a paper and some cigarettes. What he actually walked into was a scene. He took one look at the blood on the counter, ran down the street to a payphone and called the cops. Like I said, three DB's: two male, one female—"

"Catherine?" Connie Timmons, one of the paramedics, popped out her blonde head of the Stop-n-Go, her gray eyes wide. "Grissom? You guys better come see this."

Catherine dropped her coffee and hightailed it into the store and Grissom followed suit, still clutching his field kit.

They entered the Stop-n-Go and saw four paramedics swarming around a stretcher that supposedly held a body. They could hear one of them speaking to it,

"Sir, Can you hear me?…what's his name? Adrian?…Adrian! Can you hear me? Squeeze my hand if you can hear me Adrian! Adrian! Can you hear me? Open your eyes again, Adrian…" 

Catherine gave Connie a curious look.

"We have a live one," Connie replied.

"He's _alive_?"

"I went to check his pulse and heartbeat and he opened his eyes. I put my hand in his and he gripped it a bit."

Grissom frowned, "Are you sure it wasn't a reflex?"

"He blinked four times. We checked him out, Grissom, he's got a pulse and a heartbeat. They're weak, but he's got 'em. We're rushing him to ICU as fast as we can."

"By all means," Catherine flashed a small smile. She went to talk to another paramedic while Connie explained the situation to Grissom.

"I swear, we thought he was cooked," Connie said, her eyes sparkling with adrenaline. "When we arrived, there was just so much blood. But, as you know, it's standard procedure to check for pulse and heartbeat, regardless. 

"He was shot twice in the back but the bullets didn't exit. One went though and through via the liver and a fourth nicked his hip. Look, I'm really sorry if this screws up your crime scene, but if we don't get him to Emergency and put a few pints of blood back into him, the body count will go up to three for real."

Grissom looked around the convenience store. He saw the body of a Hispanic woman lying face-down, swimming in a pool of her own blood by the checkout counter, which was also covered in blood. The third body was yet to be seen. "Go ahead," he directed. "But be careful."

As the paramedics pulled the stretcher out of the Stop-n-Go, Grissom caught a glimpse of the young man. He did indeed look dead, his skin pale and his eyes closed. Blood was matted in his reddish-brown hair. A breathing apparatus was attached to his nose and mouth and an IV was already inserted into his arm. The paramedics whisked him away and into the truck.

"Has anyone identified him yet?" Grissom asked Catherine as they watched the ambulance turn on its lights and whisk away.

"Yep," Catherine said. "Adrian Lowe. Twenty-one years young. They found his wallet. He's not local—his driver's license says California. Palo Alto, to be exact. He had a few pictures in there." Catherine tugged on a pair of gloves and dipped into a plastic bag she took from her field kit, withdrawing a brown leather wallet. "Pictures are in here…girlfriend and his kids, maybe?"

Grissom took the wallet from Catherine, but not before putting on gloves of his own, pulling them from his vest pocket. She showed him a picture of two girls, identical twins, with long, dark red hair. They were blowing kisses to the camera. He took the picture from it's holder and scrutinized it. It was recent. The date on the back stated that it was taken only last year.

"No," Grissom said. "They look too old."

"Think this might be his girlfriend?" Catherine flipped to a photo of a strikingly gorgeous woman with strawberry-blond hair and bluish eyes. Grissom felt a bit of a déjà vu coming on as he examined it. He shook his head and said no.

"Anything missing from the wallet?" he then asked.

"Nope. Well, minus five dollars," Catherine said sadly. "All he wanted was some milk." She gestured towards a white plastic bag, bloodied and ripped, revealing the carton. "Poor kid."

"What about the others?" Grissom asked. He put his field kit down carefully.

"If you look behind the counter, you'll find contestant number two," Catherine said. "Mason Ziegler, a.k.a. Mazz, Stop-n-Go employee. Twenty-five. Shot once in the head, point black. That's all it took."

Grissom gingerly stepped over and peered behind the counter as Catherine suggested. A white male was sprawled on his back, dressed in a faded T-shirt advertising Ozzfest '97 and baggy, torn up jeans. His dark brown hair was dreadlocked and adorned with a macramé hair wrap and he sported a scruffy goatee. He looked, unfortunately, like one of the many Rastafarian-wannabe-potheads one would occasionally encounter in a high school environment. He gave Catherine an odd stare.

"Did this boy think he was Bob Marley? Because he's not the only one. Can't go a day without seeing one _somewhere_."

Catherine shrugged. "No woman no cry."

"I don't know about that—what about the woman over there?"

"Pancha Nichols. Forty-two. She was shot in the head, stomach and chest an estimated total of six times."

Grissom knelt down beside the body of Pancha Nichols, taking pity on her and the violence she'd suffered. Her black hair was matted and her face was covered in blood. Her eyes, once a rich chocolate brown, were clouded over with death. As he leaned in to inspect what looked like a knife wound on her cheek, he heard a crash. He cocked his head, making sure that wasn't his imagination.

"Did you—?"

"Yeah," Catherine's hand went to her gun. "I did."

Grissom stood. "Shh," he ordered her, though she said nothing. They stood still until they heard another crash. It was softer but still audible. He pointed in the direction of where he figured the sound was coming from, towards the back of the store. He and Catherine tiptoed until a third crash sounded. 

This one led them exactly to the point of origin—the broom closet. The pair approached it silently. They were both thinking the same thing: _the criminal often returns to the scene of the crime_.

"I'm going to open the door," Grissom whispered. "You ready?"

Catherine nodded and removed her gun from her holster. She cocked it and aimed. "Ready."

Taking a deep breath, Grissom quickly flung open the door and a high-pitched scream emitted from within. Catherine, frightened, gave a yelp and dropped her gun. Thankfully, it didn't go off when it hit the floor.

"What? What is it?" Grissom prompted Catherine to answer. When she didn't speak and just stood frozen from shock, Grissom peered inside for a look. 

Surrounded by brooms and cleaning supplies, fallen buckets and brushes, was a young girl, cowering in the fetal position, trembling. Her skin was light brown, her hair black-blue. The front of her white long-sleeved T-shirt was covered in blood. She also wore silky blue pajama pants adorned with yellow moons and stars and her feet donned battered white tennis shoes She was sobbing, obviously frightened to death at seeing a gun being pointed at her, perhaps for the second time that night. 

"I'm okay," Catherine said, breathlessly. "I think I just had a stroke, but I'm okay." She bent down to pick up her gun and replaced it in her holster.

"You sure you're alright?"

"I'll live another day, Gil. But I'm not the one who needs help now," She knelt in the doorway. "Hello," she said to the girl in a calm voice, though her heart was pounding in her throat. "Can you tell me your name?"

The girl, startled, inched away from Catherine.

"My name is Catherine," Catherine continued. "Can you tell me yours?"

No answer.

Grissom jumped into the conversation. "Do you speak English?" he asked curiously.

To the surprise of the CSI's, the girl slowly lifted her head and nodded.

"At least that's progress," Catherine murmured.

"My name," the girl said in a soft whisper, "is Marquita Dali. I am Pancha Nichols's niece. Is she still here?"

Catherine's face fell. She helplessly looked up at Grissom, who was leaning against the door in defeat. 

"Marquita," Grissom said, his tongue getting the crisp Latino pronunciation of her name, "how old are you?"

"Seventeen."

"Are you hurt, Marquita?" Catherine asked. She eyed the blood on the girl's shirt. 

Marquita un-scrunched herself from the position she was sitting in, unwrapped her left hand from a cleaning rag and, like a terrified kitten, crept over to Catherine on her hands and knees, holding out her hand.

"Gil," Catherine said, taking Marquita's bloodied hand in her gloved ones. "Get down to kiddy-level and take a look at this."

Grissom knelt beside Catherine, slid his glasses on over his face and saw clearly what Marquita was displaying.

She had been impaled through the hand with a very sharp object, perhaps a knife or dagger, and a long one at that. Her hand was covered in blood, but the stab wound was clear and clean, through-and-through. She had been pierced through the palm and the tip of the blade had come out on the other side and then hastily pulled out. It was gruesome and would definitely need stitches.

"You poor thing," Catherine cooed. "Gil, get me some swabs please."

Grissom went to his field kit and pulled out some cotton swabs and a few envelopes for Catherine, who pulled on a clean pair of gloves. When he came back to the broom closet, Marquita was being a little more piqued.

"I don't need sympathy," Marquita said, pulling her hand away. "Or doctoring. I want my aunt and I want to go home."

Catherine took Marquita's hand back. "We'll let you go home, Marquita, if you please tell us what happened."

"And Aunt Pancha and me can go home?" 

Grissom looked over his shoulder and saw where Pancha Nichols was still lying, her blood empty from her body. In the distance, he could see Nick pulling up in the CSI Tahoe. Captain Jim Brass wasn't far behind in his cop car. 

"Yes," Catherine was saying, babying the girl as if she was Lindsey's age, not having the guts to tell her Marquita would be going home alone.

"Marquita," Grissom said as Catherine swabbed the wound, "Will you be able to tell us what happened?"

"I was stabbed like a side of beef, that's what happened. Look, are you guys cops? Because that last time? With that rock thing? It wasn't my fault. It was my friend Paula, see, and _she_ was the one who picked up the rock and—"

"We're not cops," Grissom said, trying to keep Marquita from babbling and saying something she might regret later on. "We're just Crime Scene Investigators."

"You mean, CSI's? Hey, that's cool. Why didn't you say so?" Marquita brightened a little. "My brothers watch those shows on TV _all_ the time—_Forensic Files_ and shit like that. Pretty blazin'. Aunt Pancha likes 'em too. She'll wanna meet you guys. Where did she go?"

The entrance bell of the Stop-n-Go rang and Catherine could feel Marquita's muscles tense up, even just by holding her hand.

"Hello? Anyone alive in here?" came Nick Stokes's Texas drawl.

"In the back," Grissom called, not taking his eyes off of Marquita's palm. "Is Brass with you?"

"Right here," Jim Brass replied, a northern New Jersey accent in his voice. He looked in the direction of Pancha Nichols's "You guys weren't kidding—'red scene' is right."

"Really," awed Nick, eyeballing the mass quantities of blood. "I thought you said three DB's. I only see one." He approached the closet, where Catherine and Marquita were crouched on the floor. Catherine had one hand by Marquita's wrist and the other underneath her hand. The blood from Marquita's stab wound was still fresh, and was pooling in the cavity of Catherine's palm. Nick rested his field kit on a shelf of paper towels and took a roll. He unwrapped it, tore a few sheets off and handed them to Catherine, who took them graciously. 

"Jim Brass, Nick Stokes, meet Marquita Dali," Grissom said to the police captain and his fellow CSI. "Right now she's our only conscious survivor."

"Hi," Marquita said softly. She took one look at Nick, blushed and fluttered her eyelashes. Then she stared at her hand. It killed like a bitch but she didn't want to tell them that, especially _this_ sexy stud. Marquita felt her fingers going numb and her palm pulsated with searing pain but she held her tongue.

"I thought you said three DB's," Nick repeated.

"Interesting story," Grissom said. "One of our gunshot victims? He was still alive when the meds arrived."

"Twenty-one-year-old kid survived two to the back and one through the liver," Catherine added. "He's supposedly in surgery right now." Her eyes flew to Grissom's watch on the wrist that hung at his side. "If he makes it…"

"One DB is behind the counter. Nick, if you could take care of the pictures…?"

"Sure."

"The other DB, which you probably saw on your way in, is…" Grissom glanced at Marquita Dali. "I'm sorry Marquita," he said sadly. "But one of the dead is your aunt."

Marquita gasped. She felt nauseous and light-headed. Her hand flew to her throat—unfortunately, it was her injured hand. It smeared blood along her neck and the collar of her shirt. Then, unconsciously, her hand went to her forehead, smearing more blood. She began to cry, tears pouring from her eyes faster than the blood from her hand. Her body heaved with sobs.

"Whoa," Nick jumped in with a second paper towel, trying to wipe off the blood as Catherine prompted her to stay cognizant.

"Marquita?" Catherine put her hands on the girl's shoulders. "Stay conscious, honey."

"Ask her questions, Cath, keep her alert," Grissom advised. "Don't let her slip away."

"C'mon, stay strong, Marquita," Nick cheered her on.

Instead, Marquita made a strange guttural noise and the three CSI's and police captain watched in horror as the teenager's eyes rolled back into her head and promptly fainted, falling forward into Catherine's embrace.


	8. The Gun

Brass called the ambulance squad back to pick up Marquita Dali, then called in David, Doc Robbins's protégé, to pronounce Pancha Nichols and Mason Ziegler. Brass waited outside for David as the CSI's did their job. 

Nick got some pictures of Marquita's knife wound before the paramedics took her away. Catherine—who's shirt was now also partially covered in blood—followed the paramedics with Marquita on the stretcher. She was tempted to ride in the ambulance with her to the hospital, just to keep her company, but Grissom was against it.

"I need you here," he said. "We can go after we're finished processing the scene."

Catherine did get into the ambulance, but not to ride with Marquita. As a protocol, she was stripped of her bloodied shirt when Nick had said, as she was exiting the Stop-n-Go,

"Hey Cath? You have a bloody handprint on the shoulder blade of your shirt."

"I know," Catherine replied. "That's where Marquita grabbed me after she fainted." She then pointed out the other various blood splotches from Marquita as a paramedic confiscated the blouse she was wearing and then tossed her a clean Clark County Ambulance Squad T-shirt so she wouldn't have to her work in her vest and bra.

"Sorry, Catherine," the paramedic, a blonde curly-haired man named Tuck. "You know the rules."

"Yeah…yeah," she sighed as Tuck wiped her down with rubbing alcohol where the blood had seeped through her shirt and onto her skin. It was cold and gave her goose bumps. She was going to miss that blue silk blouse. Lindsey had got it for her birthday last year. 

Before they put Marquita in the truck and drove away, Catherine heard her young survivor speak. Her eyes were still closed, but Catherine distinctly heard Marquita recite a phone number, but for whom was unknown,

"K-L-five-eight-one-nine-three."

Catherine committed it to memory as the ambulance pulled away. She waved, as if Marquita could see her. 

"…helluva time the shooter had here," Nick was saying as Catherine went back inside. He and Grissom were in separate spots of the store: Nick in aisle two with Pancha Nichols and Grissom behind the counter with Mason "Mazz" Ziegler. "Do we even have an order of events?"

"Not in the slightest. All we know," Grissom said, "is that the shooter was trigger happy."

"No kidding," Nick looked over Pancha Nichols. "Especially this woman."

"Shot six times," Catherine added. "Mason Ziegler was shot only once and Adrian Lowe three times—not counting the one that nicked his hip."

"I wonder if Pancha Nichols was, in fact, the target of this attack," Grissom mused aloud. "Otherwise, why take out so much violence on an obviously helpless woman? She's not much of a threat."

"Should we look into Marquita Dali as a suspect?" Nick asked. "I know she was in a closet but she was the only one who knew Pancha."

"We won't know til we question her." 

Nick paused, thought a moment and then shrugged and went back behind his camera. 

"We have to think about Marquita's hand wound," Catherine said. "Self defense, you think?"

"Looked like it," Nick replied. "Maybe she put her arms and hands up in front of her face—" he demonstrated, "—and the knife just went through her hand."

"I just want to know when she got into the closet."

Grissom sighed, "We'll find out when we question her."

Catherine went back to work, going to where she'd seen a large security mirror and—

"Got a surveillance camera back here!" 

Grissom popped up from behind the counter, his hands on his hips. "Dismantle it and get the tape to Warrick." 

As Catherine put on a third pair of clean gloves and prepared to climb on a few shelves to get what she wanted, Nick made a discovery.

"Bloody shoeprint!" Nick declared. Grissom left Mason Ziegler to observe the find.

It was only one, but perfectly formed. It was still slightly wet, shining and glaring at the two CSI's with contempt.

"The shooter's, maybe? It's too big to be Pancha's or even Marquita's." 

Grissom knelt beside it. "This is definitely a man's shoe." He put his own size ten foot beside it. The print was smaller. "And Mason Ziegler is wearing a size thirteen. I'd say this was an eight, maybe a nine, but no bigger."

Nick positioned himself by the footprint. "Looks like the shooter was standing over Pancha's body after he shot her." 

Grissom went back to Mason Ziegler's body. He sifted through the dreadlocks on the dead young man's head. He found dandruff, of course, but nothing else. There was no exit wound of the bullet that had entered through his forehead. He had first- and second-degree burns around his lips. There was a strange reddish-brown substance underneath his otherwise dirty fingernails. Grissom took a careful scraping and then went to search the pockets of Mason's jeans. He found a half dozen dime bags of marijuana, which didn't surprise him, along with some wax paper and a couple of lighters. He bagged each one. He also found a ball of foil that turned out to contain what he knew to be "roaches": the very tail end of a joint, smoked to get a tiny buzz. They were held to the lips using tweezers and then lit, which would explain the burn marks around Mason's lips—from the heat on the metal of the tweezers.

As Catherine came down from getting the surveillance camera, she noticed something black and shiny, hiding and glaring at her. She carefully put the camera down and got on her hands and knees. Underneath the nearest shelf was what she'd been hoping to find—a gun. 

"I got it," she exclaimed. "I found the gun." 

"No way," Nick said. 

"Way," Catherine stood, the gun between her thumb and forefinger. "How'd it get over here?" 

Grissom popped up from behind the counter again, "Perhaps it's not _the_ gun, simply _a_ gun."

"A gun's a gun," Catherine sighed as she bagged it. "Hopefully we can lift some prints from it."

"If it's the shooters, he most likely wore gloves."

"A gun's a gun, Gil. Why else is it here in _this_ convenience store?"

"She's right, Grissom," said Nick. "It's gotta be _the_ gun."

"Besides, regardless of if the shooter wore gloves or not," Catherine reasoned, "there might me a set on here that could point us _to_ the shooter."

Grissom gave a combination sigh/grunt and went back behind the counter. 

"So," Catherine sighed as she extracted the tape from the surveillance camera. "Where were you last night? Sara said you took a night off."

"What?" Grissom popped up again and figured if he was going to be a jack-in-the-box all night, he would never get any work done. "Sara said what?"

"She said you took a night off."

"Is that where you were?" Nick asked Grissom curiously. "Night off?"

"You almost never do that," Catherine said. "Where'd you go?"

Grissom puckered his brow. "I don't understand how this is any of your business." 

"It's not. But I still wanna know why. Hot date?" Catherine cocked her head.

Grissom rolled his eyes. "Sort of." _Not the hot part at least._

"Who's the lucky girl?" Nick asked. 

"She's not a 'lucky girl', Nicky."

"Well, who is she?"

"Just…just someone from my past," Grissom admitted hurriedly, but would say no more. "Listen, this is a crime scene, not the dating game."

"Sure," Catherine sighed. "Whatever you say."

Grissom ducked behind the counter again, his knees cracking as he did so. As he continued to search Mason Ziegler's pockets, he began to wonder how the hell he was going to keep his private life private, especially with Sara running her mouth. 

If this is what family _really_ did to him, he definitely did not like it.


	9. The Number

Once evidence was collected and the CSI's were ready to return to the lab, Catherine, as Grissom promised, still wanted to go to Las Vegas Medical to check up on Marquita Dali.

"You sure you want to go?" Grissom frowned. 

"I'd like to, yeah," Catherine said as Grissom followed her to the Tahoe. "You hitching a ride with Nick?" 

"Might as well." Grissom tossed Catherine the keys. "Catherine, just remember—don't get involved. Personally."

"I won't," Catherine assured. "She collapsed! In _my_ arms, no less. I just want to see if the poor girl's alright. You don't need to remind me not to get involved."

"I just feel better saying it." 

Before Catherine hopped into the Tahoe, she paused and the number Marquita had mumbled before she was carted away popped into her head. KL5-8193. Catherine wanted to call…her hand went to her cellphone and then looked at her watch. It was a quarter to seven in the morning. She turned to Grissom. "Marquita Dali gave me a phone number before she went to the hospital. Should I call it?"

"Who's number is it?" 

"Don't know. All she said was the number. I feel like it's my duty to dial it. But I don't know who will answer."

"A part of this job is not knowing," Grissom recited. "The number you dial could lead us to Marquita's—and Pancha's, hopefully—next of kin. It will save a lot of time."

Catherine took her cellphone from her belt and punched in the numbers Marquita had given her.She waited as it rang four times before a tired woman's voice came on the line. "Hello?" 

"Hello. This is Catherine Willows with the Las Vegas Crime Lab. With whom am I speaking?" Catherine gave Grissom a side glance. 

"Why do you want to know? How the hell did you get this number? Do you know what time it is?" The voice had a Mexican accent.

"I'll explain once I get your name."

"Ines Dali. Why?"

"Ms. Dali, I got your number from your…well, I suppose she would be your daughter…Marquita Dali?" 

"Wait a sec. Crime Lab? Marquita? What did _la pequeña diabla_ do now? Do I need to come down there and discipline her? Because I'm in bed with a back injury—I'll have to send over my sister Pancha if that's okay—"

"No, no. That won't be necessary," Catherine said quickly. Grissom was giving her quizzical stares. Catherine pursed her lips, not knowing what to say next. But she remembered her promise to Grissom about not getting involved and came right out and said it. "Your sister Pancha and your daughter Marquita were involved in a robbery early this morning, around four AM."

"¡_Ay, Dios mio_!" Ines Dali gasped. "_Ay_, I never should have made Pancha go out so late! I could have gone without the Tylenol…"

"Calm down, Ms. Dali," Catherine soothed. 

"Is she okay? Is Marquita okay? _Are they okay_?" 

"Can you get to Las Vegas Medical at all?" 

"I can probably have my son drive me. I wasn't kidding about my back injury, you know," Ines replied hurriedly.

"I understand. Just please, any way you can, I'd like to see you at Las Vegas Medical," Catherine said. "It's rather urgent." 

"_Sí_. Just tell me, Ms. Willows," Ines said breathlessly. "Is my family okay?" 

Catherine took a deep breath, "I'll explain everything once we meet at the hospital. My supervisor and I will be waiting at the main entrance."

Ines agreed and the two women hung up. 

Grissom crossed his arms and stroked his beard with one hand like a wise professor. "'My supervisor and I'? Am I accompanying you on this excursion, Catherine?"

Catherine recoiled as he pronounced her name: Cath-er-ine, each syllable stressing a point, a tone of voice reserved for reprimanding. "Well…"

"Look, it's no problem, but I wish you would tell me beforehand."

"I can't meet this woman alone," Catherine reasoned, tapping her cellphone in her palm, "that's all. I can't tell her that her sister was shot six times for no reason, that her daughter was skewered through the hand by an assailant. I'm sorry, Gil, I know that's really out of character for me, but I can't."

"I understand," Grissom said, relaxing her worries. "It's because of Marquita, right?" 

"I'll drive," Catherine sighed. 

"Of course." 

Catherine and Grissom were waiting at Las Vegas Medical for nearly an hour, with Catherine pacing by the entrance, hands clasped behind her back before a beat up red Jeep Cherokee in need of a serious wash pulled up in front. A young man with shiny black eyes and blue-black hair was driving. His skin was caramel and his build was thin and muscular but not toned. He got out of the Jeep and entered the hospital, then approached them.

"Are you either of you Catherine Willows?" the young man inquired, his voice dripping with disdain. 

It was on the tip of Grissom's tongue to say, "That's me", just to rile the kid up, but Catherine was quicker. 

"Yes, I am," Catherine said. "You are?"

"The chauffer," the young man said sarcastically. "Come on. Ines is waiting for you."

Grissom and Catherine shared a private Look and Grissom shrugged. Catherine followed the young man out to the Jeep. She watched as he went to the hatch and pull out a wheelchair. Then he opened the backseat and helped a thin, pretty woman with an ashen face into it. Catherine saw Marquita and the young man in the woman's features—same nose, eye, hair and skin color.

"_Ay_…_gracias_, Diego," she said, settling into the chair and wincing with pain. Then she looked up, black-button eyes shining. "Catherine Willows?" 

"Yes…Ines Dali?"

"_Sí_, and this is my son Diego."

Diego gave a curt nod. 

Grissom frowned. There was something about this kid, Diego, he wasn't keen on. His sarcasm, the way he held himself, his current stance just spoke volumes that Grissom didn't like.

"Mama," Diego said firmly, putting a hand on Ines's shoulder and squeezing slightly. "I should get back home. Alejandra and Joaquim are home alone."

"_Sí_, I will call you when I'm done. If this involves Marquita, then this may take awhile. God knows what the hell she got into._ Besame, m'hijo_," Ines looked up at her son with pleading eyes. He dutifully bent down and pecked his mother quickly on the cheek. Then, as quick as he came, Diego jumped into the Jeep and peeled out of Las Vegas Medical's parking lot. 

"Drive carefully, _tú diablo del camino_!" Ines shouted after him.

"Ms. Dali," Catherine said after Ines watched her son disappear in the Jeep, "I'd like to ask you a few questions before I give you the news on your sister and daughter. Would you come inside?"

"Yes, of course."

"Do you need help?"

"No…I'll be alright," Ines's hands dropped to her sides, put her hands on the top of the wheels and she began to push the wheelchair slowly into the hospital entrance.

"May I ask how you hurt your back?"

Ines sighed. "Dumb story, actually, Catherine Willows," she began, using both of Catherine's names. "I was helping a friend pile some boxes at Costco—that's where I work. And I went to lift this box that Marco told me 'wasn't heavy'. Well, guess what? It was heavy. I pulled a muscle."

"Ah."

"My doctor said to stay bedridden for a few days. Well, I'm a widow with four children that need me so I called Pancha and she came down to help me out until my back was better."

"That was nice of her."

"Pancha always looks out for me," Ines said as they entered the hospital. "My big sister, always taking care of me. Drops everything to help me."

"Ms. Dali," Catherine said. "I'd like you to meet my supervisor, Gil Grissom. Gil, this is Marquita Dali's mother Ines."

"_Mucho gusto_," Ines said as Grissom shook her hand.

"Hello," Grissom greeted. "I'm sure Catherine has already told you we'd like to ask you a few questions first, before you see your daughter."

"Of course. Go ahead," Ines sat back in her chair.

"Why would your sister and daughter be at a convenience store at nearly five in the morning?"

Ines hung her head sheepishly. "I was complaining of spasms," she said. "I begged Pancha to go out and buy some Tylenol for the pain, for we had none, because my youngest daughter had just gotten over a flu."

"You didn't have pain medication?" 

"Yes, of course I did. Dr. Simone told me to take them if the pain gets bad and they were such _tiny_ spasms, _señor_, and I didn't want to overdo it. I thought, a couple of mild painkillers wouldn't hurt."

"So you sent Pancha out to go get them."

"That's right. She said, 'if you really feel you need them, Ines, I'll go get them.'"

"And what about Marquita? How does she play into this?"

"What do you mean?"

"Did you see her go with Pancha?"

"Honestly, _señor_," Ines looked Grissom in the eye intently. "I didn't realize Marquita was gone until Catherine Willows called me this morning."

"You didn't?" Catherine asked. 

"No. I thought she was in bed, with her sister Alejandra—that's my youngest child, she's eleven. After I hung up with Catherine Willows, Alejandra came into my room and said that Marquita was gone."

"Maybe she just snuck out with Pancha?"

"That's what I'm thinking," Ines pressed her lips together. "It's not like Marquita to leave without telling me. She's usually the good one."

"'Usually the good one'?" Grissom repeated. "Compared to what?"

"Diego, my eldest. He leaves without saying so, _el apuro-fabricante_, just ups and leaves, making me wait up for him to come back. I have no idea what he does, no idea where he's going. Comes back very hostile. Marquita can be bad but usually she's an angel. Sometimes she'll get into awful trouble with some of her thug friends—like the time she was arrested for vandalizing a building with that _puta_ _gamberra_ friend of hers, Paula Naldo—but otherwise, I never hear anything from her. Always home on time."

"So this wasn't the norm for Marquita?"

"_Dios_, no. Not usually."

Catherine paused a moment. "Do you know of any enemies that Pancha or Marquita would have?"

"Enemies? I know of a few kids in Marquita's school that pick on her. And I _know_ some of her _gamberra_ friends would turn on her like that," Ines snapped her fingers.

"Well…anyone that would want to hurt Marquita? Or Pancha, for that matter?"

"_Hurt_ them? I don't understand. Could you please tell me why I'm here and what happened to my family?" 

Grissom turned to Catherine. "You want to handle this?" 

"Yeah," she nodded. Catherine knelt by Ines's wheelchair. "Ms. Dali…the robbery that your sister and your daughter were in proved fatal to two people involved."

"_¿Qué, qué?_" Ines's eyes widened. "Fatal? _¡Oh, dios querido, por favor, no!_" She buried her face in her hands. "_¡Opinión no está por favor tan!_ Say it's not true!"

"Marquita is alive," Catherine continued, carefully choosing as delicate words as possible. "She was…impaled through the hand with a knife, but as far as we know, she's otherwise healthy. And lucky, I might add."

"_¿Y _Pancha_? ¿Y mi hermana?_"

"Pancha, unfortunately, was not so lucky."

"Don't tell me," Ines sniffed back tears. "She was killed."

"Yes."

"My sister is dead," Ines sobbed into her hands.

"But your daughter is alive."

"Pancha…Pancha, _ay, mi hermana meyor_…_¿Porqué usted se fue?_ Pancha, Pancha, Pancha…"

Grissom tapped Catherine's shoulder a few times. "Would you like me to go check on Marquita's progress?"

Catherine nodded and put a sympathetic hand on the small of Ines's back. "Give us a minute," she said.

Grissom left the two women in the lobby of the hospital and once he turned the corner, Catherine spoke softly to Ines. 

"Ines…" Catherine used her first name. "Are you alright?"

"_Por favor, _Catherine Willows," Ines sobbed. "_Digame una cosa_. Tell me one thing: did my sister suffer?"

Images of Pancha Nichols's bullet-eaten body bathed in blood flashed in front of Catherine's eyes. It was horrific. It would be cruel to tell the truth. "No, Ines," Catherine lied. "She didn't. She really didn't."


	10. The Frenchwoman

Grissom rounded the corner out of Las Vegas Medical's lobby and headed to reception. He didn't need directions to the surgery floor, for he knew it like the back of his hand. Intending to visit the doctor that had performed his otosclerosis surgery over the summer—a pleasantly plum man named Joseph Connell who reminded Grissom of Alfred Hitchcock—he went up two flights in the elevator and got his CSI ID out from underneath his jacket to show the heavyset nurse behind the desk. Before he could get there, however, he was distracted by the sound of a woman's screams.

"Why won't anyone tell me anything?!" she was protesting. Her voice was loud and obnoxious. It irritated Grissom's now-sensitive ears.

He turned his head and saw a familiar red-haired woman in an aggressive stance—feet firmly planted and hands clenched into fists. She was yelling at a confused nurse, a young black woman.

"Ma'am, please…calm down and lower your voice," the nurse was saying. 

"How the hell can I calm down? Why won't you give me any information about my son, damn it? _Je déteste les médecins américains_!" the woman's voice became shrill as she stomped her foot. Grissom was now thoroughly confused. He knew this woman. He definitely did.

"Please…keep it down," the nurse begged, looking uncomfortable, "or we will have to call in security."

"My son is in surgery! It is very serious! I want to know what's going on! I want to know what's happening with my son!" the woman was in tears now.

"I don't know your son."

"His name is Adrian Marius de L'eau! How hard is that, _vous chèvre sourde-muette_? _Je veux des nouvelles sur mon fils!_"

"Then the doctor will find you once there is any news, ma'am!" 

Grissom's selective hearing kicked in. _Did the woman just say her son's last name was de L'eau? Adrian de L'eau? L'eau…'Low'…Adrian Lowe! One of the gunshot victims! _He recognized her from one of the pictures in Adrian's wallet.

The nurse, now fed up with this woman, exited it the waiting room, leaving the exasperated red-headed woman in a cloud of anger and calling over her shoulder to the reception nurse, "Kim, I have to get back to cardiac. Watch out for this firecracker, huh? Make sure she don't explode all over the room."

When the nurse left, the Frenchwoman began pacing the waiting room, muttering French obscenities. 

"Miss," the reception nurse, Kim, a heavyset woman with honey-colored hair, stood up angrily and spoke firmly. "If you don't sit down and shut up, I _will_ call the authorities."

"Go ahead, call the cops!" the woman threatened. "I don't care! Haul me off to jail, why don't you, then you'll really have a problem on your hands, _vous effraye_!"

Grissom felt dense just standing there watching this woman go insane so he stepped in, unconsciously, feeling a yearning to be a peacemaker.

"Ma'am," he said to the woman in a gentle voice. "I think it would be wise of you to respect the wishes of the hospital administration, considering the fact that they _are_ indeed treating your son."

"And who the _hell_ are you?" the woman stared at Grissom, her gaze burning heatedly. He couldn't tell what color her eyes were. They were not quite blue but not quite purple. They took his breath away. He knew those eyes.

"No one in particular. Let me just say," Grissom said, "that I'm sure that once the doctors have news on your son, they will give it to you."

"You don't under_stand_, monsieur," the woman said, a little more composed now. "My son was shot in a robbery early this morning. He is in surgery. He may _die_, monsieur."

"What's your son's name?" Grissom asked, pretending he hadn't heard before.

"Adrian," the woman replied. "Adrian Marius de L'eau. He's twenty-one, with blonde hair, blue eyes, tall."

"I'm a crime scene investigator," Grissom explained the theory he'd kept to himself to her. "I was called in to _investigate_ a robbery at a store called the Stop-n-Go this morning. A young man involved named Adrian _Lowe_ was involved. He fits your description. Could that possibly be your son?"

"Lowe? He went and changed his name without telling me?" the woman winced. "Wanting to sound more American, _le petit garçon têtu_—"

"He's not American? Then it must not be your son. He carried a California driver's license," Grissom tested her.

"No," the woman shook her head. "That's my son alright. He wasn't born in America, so technically, he is not American. He was born in France and we moved to Canada when he was one. We live in California now and he always wanted to sound…normal, I should say, calling himself Lowe instead of de L'eau, to Americanize himself. For shame, _mon fils_."

"I see," Grissom said. Then, going out on a limb, he asked a question that had been reeling in his mind for at least five minutes, "Could I…could I have your name please, ma'am?"

"Nicolette. Nicolette de L'eau."

Grissom's head spun. "Nicolette de L'eau?" he repeated, making sure he'd heard correctly.

"_Oui_."

"Nicolette de L'eau…from Peu de Pré, Quebec?" he blurted.

"_Oui_—how did…how do _you_ know that? It's a very small town. Do you know someone from that area?"

"Um," Grissom felt stuck between a rock and a hard place. "I…"

"Monsieur?"

He couldn't answer. Nicolette de L'eau. Now he knew for sure. He had carried the assumption in his mind ever since he saw her, but now there was no doubt. _This was his Nicolette_. This was Nicolette who had, once upon a time, carried his child for a short while. This was the one that got away. This was his great love, his beautiful, wonderful, soft Nicolette. This was the beauty queen who could have been his wife…twenty-one years ago…

"Monsieur, are you okay?"

Twenty-one. Twenty-one. Adrian was twenty-one. Where did Adrian come from, so quickly? Nicolette had sworn to abort as soon as she realized she was pregnant, claimed she wasn't ready for a child. Unless…

Unless Adrian was _his_ child. The child Nicolette had wanted to get rid of. The child he wanted and she did not.

"Monsieur?" 

Grissom's throat went dry and he opened his mouth but no sound came out. Before he could get a chance to recover from what was such a shock, his beeper went off.

"Excuse me, Ms. de L'eau," he said, thankful for the excuse. He took the pager off his belt and looked at the LCD. It read _Stokes 911_—Nick, with big news. "I have to take this call."

"Oh…of course."

"Why don't you get yourself a seat and stop worrying yourself. I'm sure if there's any new developments about Adrian, the doctors would tell you straightaway."

Before Nicolette could give him an answer or thank him for anything, he was off to find a payphone, his heart pounding in his ears. 

__

The gods, too, are fond of a joke, Grissom ran the quote by Aristotle in through his mind like a mantra. _First Chloe and Rose, now Nicolette and Adrian._ What the hell was Fate doing with his head? If he had anymore surprises tonight, he would end up on the cardiac ward within minutes. Who else was left to show up out of the blue? His father, whom he hasn't seen since he was eight? 

Grissom found a payphone beside the reception desk and dialed Nick's cellphone.

"Stokes," came the voice after only two rings.

"It's Grissom."

"Wow. That was fast, Gris. Where are you?"

"Las Vegas Medical. Catherine wanted to check on Marquita Dali."

"So what are _you_ doing there?"

"Catherine asked me to come. What did you page me for?"

"Well, we got some information on our vics. Pancha Nichols was clean as a whistle as far as her blood tox went. There was, however, skin under her fingernails, according to Greg's reports. Skin under Marquita's nails, too, which we wouldn't have gotten if not for Catherine."

"They struggled."

"Apparently, DNA is a male relative."

"Male relative? Pancha's husband or Son? Marquita's brother? Or a nephew, maybe?" Grissom remembered Diego Dali, how he rubbed him the wrong way.

"The answers to your question are, respectively: yes, dunno, dunno, dunno and dunno…yet."

Exasperated, Grissom pressed his underling, "What else?" 

"There was a gash on Pancha's cheek that was made by a knife, probably the same one that impaled Marquita Dali, because the one of the swabs Catherine used on Marquita's hand? Contained two sets of DNA—Pancha's _and_ Marquita's."

"So the assailant cut Pancha and then stabbed Marquita?"

"Yeah, that's what we can figure. Doc Robbins thinks that the cut on Pancha, however, might be accidental." 

"The cut may be accidental but the six bullets thorough her body were definitely not. Make sure you collect those and get them to ballistics, by the way. What about Mason Ziegler? Anything on him?"

"Well, talk about night and day. One extreme to another, Gris," Nick chuckled. "Opposed to Pancha Nichols, there was a _colossal_ amount of toxins in Mason Ziegler's blood—a little something called THC? Not just colossal, I'm talkin' like, more than a normal human being should have. This kid was probably stoned twenty-four-seven."

"What about the substance underneath his fingernails?"

"That's the sixty-four thousand dollar question: what's that material used in pottery and ceramics, made into vases, ashtrays and useless statuettes and is commonly used to entertain kindergarteners?"

Grissom paused. "It's not Play-Doh. I'm going to say clay. Final answer." 

"Yeah. Red clay to be exact. Common in ceramics. Not only was it under his fingernails, it was on his pants and some was even embedded into his pockets and a few pieces were even in his hair."

"Not using shampoo will do that to you. Okay, Nicky, when you get a chance, find out where Mason Ziegler lived, take Sara and do a search at his residence."

"Sara? Is she even on this case?"

"She is now. Warrick, too. We need him to take a look at that surveillance tape Catherine got from Stop-n-Go. Pull them off of whatever case they're working on, and if Sara gives you lip like she did last time I had her pulled off a case, I'll deal with it as soon as I get there. Fill them in on as much as possible. I'd like all hands on deck for this one. I mean _all_. No excuses. There are two people dead and a third may or may not be added to the list. Let's hope for the latter."

"Gotcha, Gris."

"I want a call from anyone or everyone whenever something is discovered, as soon as it's discovered. No more surprises for me for a while."

It was Nick's turn to pause. "What do you mean by that?"

"It doesn't matter what I mean. Just do your job, please, Nick, which is to do what _I_ say. Thank you." Then Grissom hung up a little more forcefully than he intended to.

Back at CSI HQ, Nick Stokes stared with a look of confusion on his face at his cellphone, the dial tone ringing. He'd been told off by Gil Grissom twice in twenty-four hours.

__

What's up with that?


	11. The Wound

"Monsieur," Nicolette begged of Grissom when he returned from his phone call with Nick. "This may sound strange, but…will you stay with me? Just until I get some news about my son?"

Grissom started to refuse. "I really have to return to work," he lied.

"Please, just stay. You remind me of someone; you give me warm comfort."

Blinking in confusion, Grissom sat beside her. "Who did I remind you of?"

Nicolette looked at her lap. "No one in particular," she teased.

As they waited for any news of Adrian's surgery, Nicolette talked and Grissom listened. It was either from nervousness or the urge to fill silence, but she shared her life with him. Grissom was patient, nodding where appropriate but otherwise staying more or less silent.

Nicolette briefly reviewed her life in Quebec, starting with the death of her parents in a car accident when she was ten and living with her aunt Violette in France where she'd lived for four years until Aunt Violette sent her to boarding school and then continued her education at college—UCLA. Here, Grissom held his breath to see if she would mention him. She didn't. She skipped right to her internship and a "brief affair with a handsome coroner" that led to her pregnancy with Adrian.

Grissom, though flattered she'd called him handsome, was insulted that she'd considered their five-year relationship a "brief affair". He held his tongue, however, and continued to listen. 

"When I revealed my pregnancy, I was so mortified that I didn't come to work for a week. After contemplating for some time, I decided to quietly resign and I returned to France."

She moved back in with Aunt Violette's loft in Paris, where Adrian was born a month premature on August twenty-second, 1982. 

Grissom felt winded. His own son was born five days after his twenty-seventh birthday. And he never knew. 

After Adrian was born, Nicolette explained her return trip to Canada, her moving-in with her older sister Sophie, her husband Jean and their four young children and then her eventual internship at a children's hospital in Quebec and how by Adrian's fifth birthday, she was a full-fledged pediatrician. 

She also began a "serious" relationship with a lawyer from Toronto named Robert Meullier. She and Adrian moved into Robert's penthouse together and a year after living with him, she realized how controlling he was. 

"Robert constantly told me what to wear and sometimes even bought clothes for me that were to his liking. He would tell me exactly _how_ to do my make-up, what to make for dinner. He hid my car keys on the weekends, from Friday night to Monday morning. It wasn't long before he made me quit my job at the children's hospital," Nicolette recalled sadly, her lower lip quivering.

When Robert proposed marriage to Nicolette and offered to adopt Adrian, she was hesitant but accepted, knowing he could provide well for them,

The physical abuse didn't manifest til about three months after the honeymoon. Nicolette was almost relieved she was home all the time—she could protect Adrian. 

It wasn't long before Robert wanted children. Again, Nicolette was tentative but agreed. She prayed that if she gave Robert a child, he would calm down and stop the abuse. 

She became pregnant with twins when Adrian was ten and her daughters Sylvie and Fleur were born in May of 1992.

"After the girls were born, I was so careful to make sure Adrian didn't complain and remained quiet and behaved when Robert came home from work."

Nicolette paused and toyed with the gold antique locket around her neck, a locket Grissom never noticed before. 

"Later on, things got worse. Robert hit me…he hit Adrian…he hit the girls. Adrian was tough—never cried. The girls, however, unable to understand, cried. There was nothing Robert hated more than crying children. Fleur used to wet the bed, which disgusted him, and when he found out when she did it, he would thrash her. Sylvie would try to stand up for her sister but Robert would just knocker her down, literally.

"It took a long time, six years before I was able to leave Robert. I moved back in with Sophie and Jean for a few months while I got myself together."

"Six years?" 

"_Oui_. I would leave with the children—going to friends' houses and such—and he would follow, apologizing, promising to change. I foolishly believed him. But after six years of hiding bruises and lying about where I got them…I just refused to continue. 

"I went to a hotel with the children and that's when things got really bad. He pulled a gun on me. Adrian was able to call the police and get the girls out. Robert shot me in the shoulder before the cops got there."

"He shot you?" 

Nicolette removed her sweater jacket and unbuttoned a few buttons of her shirt. She turned towards him and showed Grissom the mottled skin below her collarbone, only inches away from her famous birthmark, where the bullet had entered her body. 

"It didn't hurt," she whispered. "It never hurt when he hit me. It only hurt when he hit the children."

Grissom put his forefinger to the wound and stared into Nicolette's eyes, her skin burning with heat. They were still the most beautiful colors of night he'd ever seen. 

"I'm sorry this happened to you."

Nicolette quickly pulled her sweater back up and blushed deeply. "I'm sorry too."

"Would you like some coffee?" he said suddenly. 

She smiled and bobbed her head. "Yes, I would…thank you."

Grissom rose from his seat and went to the waiting room where he'd seen a coffee pot earlier. The room was a bit more full now. He saw a few men whom he guessed to be expectant fathers. He saw a woman in her seventies, fingering some rosary beads. And he saw a pair of red-headed twins playing cat's cradle and singing a French lullaby.

When he glanced over at them, the one on the right leaned over to her sister and whispered in her ear. Then the left one nodded and spoke up.

"Monsieur?…Monsieur?" 

Grissom turned away from his coffee. "Yes?"

The left twin slid off her chair, but not before she pulled the cat's cradle off her fingers, and approached him. "Pardon me, monsieur," she said in a voice as sweet as an angel's, "you don't know us but we know you. Are you the cop who helped my brother?" 

"_Our_ brother," corrected the still-seated right twin, scowling.

"Don't start," snapped the left twin. Then she looked at Grissom in anticipation.

So these were the twins from the picture in Adrian's wallet. Not his children as Catherine had guessed, but his sisters. "Yes, I helped your brother," Grissom said, "but I'm not a cop. I'm a forensic investigator."

"We know about forensics!" the right twin exclaimed excitedly. "Our mother used to be a dead-people doctor."

"A _coroner_, dummy," the left twin rolled her eyes. "But now she works with children, in pediatrics."

Nicolette came to the waiting room. "Girls," she said, sounding a little surprised. "When…and _how_…did you get here?"

"Twenty minutes ago. We took a cab," the right twin said.

"A cab, huh? That was clever. Stupid, but clever."

"We got bored waiting around the hotel room, no phone call. So we decided to come here and wait with you."

"It was _Fleur's_ idea," the left twin pouted.

"Sylvie!" groaned the right twin.

"Are you bothering this nice man?" Nicolette asked, nodding at Grissom.

"No, Mama," the twins said simultaneously. 

"It's fine," Grissom assured her. "Are these your twins?" 

"_Oui_. Sylvie and Fleur." Nicolette gestured to show who was who: Sylvie, the left, in a yellow shirt; Fleur, the right, in green. "They are eleven." 

"Is Adrian okay, Mama?" Sylvie, the left twin asked.

"Oh, yes," Nicolette knelt beside her. "Adrian will be fine. And as soon as he is well, we will go back home."

"As soon as the investigation is over," Grissom said. "We'll need his testimony on what happened last night."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that Adrian is valuable to the case."

"Case? What case?" Nicolette rose and crossed her arms under her breasts. She cocked her head like a confused puppy. 

"The robbery. He's a survivor and all witnessed evidence is valuable. He can help set a timeline, give us a description of the shooter. There are endless possibilities for your son in this case."

"Whatever gets us home, monsieur," Nicolette said kindly.

Grissom nodded sincerely, "I understand."

"We were here on vacation, you know," she said sadly, stroking Sylvie's hair. "What horror to spend it awaiting news on a life-or-death operation on your only son."

A grim-looking nurse with tarnished silver hair and a large nose entered the waiting room. "Is there a Nicolette de L'eau in here?" she asked, her sharp eyes searching the room.

Nicolette gasped, putting her hands over her mouth. "That is me," she mumbled. 

"Doctor Sefikosa wishes to speak with you on your son's surgery," the nurse said.

Nicolette began to follow the nurse but then grabbed Grissom's hand. "Please," she whispered. "I cannot go alone."

He hadn't held a woman's hand in at least fifteen years. Touched by this gesture, Grissom nodded and followed Nicolette to hear, hopefully, news about Adrian. 

Doctor Caleb Sefikosa, one of Las Vegas Medical's leading surgeons, was waiting on the other side of the double doors for Nicolette, standing in blood-stained scrubs and wiping his sweaty brow with the back of his arm.

"Ms. de L'eau," Sefikosa said in a tone that Grissom couldn't tell if it was glad or upset, "it was a long surgery but successful. The liver transplant was a success. We did it. Adrian survived and will survive."

Nicolette let out a small cry of happiness. She held onto Grissom's arm and let the joyful tears flow.

"Don't celebrate yet," Sefikosa warned. "I regret to report that we were unable to remove one of the bullets from Adrian's back. It's too close to the spine. If we remove it, it could be fatal or leave him quadriplegic. We had to leave it in. Unfortunately, this leaves him permanently _paraplegic_. He'll never walk again."

Grissom heard Nicolette gasp, horrified, and release a long, mournful wail. Then she went limp against his body. "Whoa now," he said, as he grabbed her by the shoulders. He didn't need two people fainting on him in one shift.

"Are you a relative?" asked Sefikosa of Grissom.

"No," he said, as he helped Nicolette stand, "just…a friend."

"My son!" Nicolette sobbed. "My son…why? _Mon Dieu_, _pourquoi_? _Ce qui dommage_!"

"Ms. De L'eau," Sefikosa said, sounding as if he was going to start a lecture.

Grissom sat Nicolette in a nearby chair. "Give her a minute, doctor," he said. "Talk to her later, okay?" 

Sefikosa glanced at Nicolette, now leaned over and wailing into her cupped hands. "Just tell her that he's in recovery right now and she can see him tomorrow."

"I'll do that."

Sefikosa walked away and Grissom went to Nicolette's side. She was sniffling and wiping her tears away with the sleeve of her sweater jacket. 

"Here," Grissom pulled a handkerchief from his vest pocket and knelt beside her. His mind suddenly flashed back to the day his world shattered, the day at the morgue when Nicolette revealed her pregnancy. They were seated in these exact positions.

"_Merci_," she thanked him in a whispery voice. Then she looked into his eyes and cupped his cheek in her ice-cold hand. "You are a remarkable man."

Grissom put his hand on hers. She smelled of licorice flowers. "So I'm told."

"I want you to know that I'm no usually so co-dependent."

"I believe you."

Nicolette wiped her eyes. "Monsieur," she said. "I will stay in Las Vegas as long as you want. Catch the bastard who incapacitated my son. Please."

Grissom stood and wiped the dust off the knees his jeans. "It's what I do best." 


	12. The Angel

"Ines, are you ready to go, now?" Catherine asked.

"_Sí_. I want to see my daughter," Ines said hoarsely. 

"Okay. Let's go find her."

Ines pushed herself in her wheelchair and Catherine walked alongside. Marquita was either in the surgery or recovery ward. Who knew how long it would take for the doctors to sew up a wound like hers? 

"I can't believe someone shot my sister; stabbed my daughter," Ines grumbled. "Who does things like that? Not even in my village in Mexico do you hear of such terrible things…"

"Where are you from in Mexico?"

"A little place outside Acapulco, called Sierra Cuervo. My husband and I ran away to Las Vegas when we were sixteen and Diego was born two years later. I haven't been back since. Pancha was the only one who came up to see us. She actually met her husband Carlos here during one of her visits. She came so often, she moved here too," Ines bit her lip and tried not to cry again. "_Ay_, I have spilled so many tears," she sniffed.

"It's okay," Catherine assured her.

"No more tears, _mamí_. _no más se rasga, no más se rasga, no más se rasga_…" Ines chanted as she pushed her wheelchair a little more forcefully. 

"Tell me, Catherine Willows," Ines said, as the pair got into the elevator. "What happened?" 

"What? At Stop-n-Go?"

"_Sí. Deseo saber._"

"We don't know yet."

"I thought you were a police?" 

"No. I'm a CSI. Police catch criminals, but we tell the police who they are."

Ines was silent. "The criminal. Anyone who stabs a seventeen year old girl is a criminal."

"Anyone who does _anything_ to seventeen year old girls is a criminal."

"_Oigo eso_. Amen," Ines exclaimed. "About my daughter's hand, Catherine Willows…"

"It was clean, Ms. Dali," Catherine assured her. "What we call at CSI, 'through and through'. The knife went it, knife went out, left Marquita with a nasty incision."

"Will she be okay?"

"Well, judging by the fact that it was right through the palm, the hand and fingers may be useless for a long time, due nerve-damage."

"It won't be amp…amp-you…ay, _¿cuál es la palabra?_ _Para amputar_," Ines blurted, frustrated with an unfamiliar English word. Then she stuck out her arm made the motion of sawing at her wrist. 

But Catherine understood. "Amputated? No, I don't think so. Unless nerve damage is so severe it can never be recovered, but I doubt it will be so extreme."

"_Gracias a Dios_. I don't know what I'll do if it happens." Ines breathed easier. "My poor baby."

The two woman located Marquita's room without any trouble. They found Marquita fast asleep and a doctor and a nurse checking her over. Ines knocked on the doorframe and the doctor and the nurse looked up.

"Can I help you?" the doctor asked, a tall, stately man with black hair and glasses too big for his comely face. 

Catherine looked down at Ines and cleared her throat. Ines nodded and began to speak, carefully.

"I am Marquita Dali's mother," Ines announced.

"Ah…Mrs. Dali," the doctor approached Ines. "I am Eli Gold, I am the on-call surgeon in emergency tonight, I performed the operation on your daughter's hand." He held out his own hand for Ines to shake, which she did. 

"Hello," she said. "And this is Catherine Willows."

"Of the Criminalistics Team for the LVPD," she added.

"Oh…you must be the famous Catherine," Dr. Gold smiled. 

"Famous?" 

"When we were sewing up Marquita's hand, she kept asking for Catherine. We kept asking her who 'Catherine' was," Dr. Gold chuckled, "she answered, _un ángel, un ángel bonita_! So you must tell me, Ms Willows—_are_ you a beautiful angel?"

Catherine blushed with flattery and began to explain what might have caused Marquita to call her that, "Well, Dr. Gold…I was called in to investigate the robbery that I'm sure you know about."

"Yes, we get as much gruesome details as you do, as a heads up, if you will."

"Anyway, Marquita was hidden in a closet and my supervisor and I found her. She was terrified, covered in blood. She showed me the wound in her hand and I helped her out until the paramedics came. She fainted when I told her about her aunt. She fainted right in my arms," Catherine added softly. 

"Well, we woke her up. It's common during a sutures procedure that the patient is kept awake, much like a customary caesarian section, using an epidural, when only the body is numbed as opposed to putting the patient to sleep," Dr. Gold said, mainly to Ines. He then knelt so he could be eye-level with Ines. "The procedure went as well as planned, Ms. Dali."

"Oh, thank goodness," Ines sighed, hand over her heart. 

"Your daughter is perfectly fine but we don't think she'll regain full usage of her left hand."

Ines couldn't do anything but nod, neither smiling nor frowning. 

"We reattached as many nerves as we could, but it's tricky work. We don't know if the entire hand can wholly respond to pain. The middle and ring fingers are the ones we're most concerned about, but we'll see."

"But she's okay?" 

"She's okay."

"May I see her?" 

"Of course," Dr. Gold stepped aside and let Ines and her wheelchair pass. 

The doctor and the CSI watched as the thin, brunette nurse backed away from Marquita's bed and Ines parked her wheelchair beside it. She leaned over and kissed her sleeping daughter gently on the face. 

"Thank you, Catherine Willows," Ines said without turning around, "for saving the life of my daughter."

"You're very welcome," came Catherine's reply, softer than she would of liked, but her throat had closed up.

Dr. Gold stepped out of the room and Catherine followed him. 

"So, Miss Angel," Dr. Gold said. "Will you be getting back to Heaven anytime soon or do you have any time to maybe grab a cup of coffee?"

Catherine blinked the confusion out of her eyes like snowflakes stuck in her lashes. "Excuse me?"

"Am I being too brash?" Worry furrowed Dr. Gold's brow. 

"No. No, not at all," Catherine replied, a bit flabbergasted.

"Well, what I mean to say…that is, for you still want to," Dr. Gold pulled off his glasses and tucked them in the jacket of his white coat, nestling them between his pens, "if you'd like to get a drink? The coffee in the cafeteria is pretty decent."

Catherine noticed how very green Dr. Gold's eyes were without the glare of his lenses in the way. Then she looked down at her watch. Grissom would have buzzed her on her cellphone if anything was up, and they couldn't leave without each other, but how long were they to linger? Seeing no harm in it, Catherine agreed to have at least one cup of coffee with the good doctor. 

"I must say, Ms. Willows," Dr. Gold said as they sat in the cafeteria across from one another at a small table, "that I'm impressed."

Catherine knitted her brow. "Pray tell with what, Dr. Gold?"

"It's Eli, please. And I don't know. With you, I suppose. Your air, your aura."

"Why?" 

Dr. Gold smiled a bit and shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe it's the way you carry yourself. With determination, with purpose. A doctor's swagger, as I like to call it."

"I'm not a doctor. I'm a scientist," Catherine said between sips of coffee. It perked her up a little bit and it _was_ surprisingly good, as hospital provisions go.

"Who says it's not nearly the same thing?" 

"_Gray's Anatomy_."

Dr. Gold paused and then chuckled. "I deserve that. I'm sorry if I'm coming on too strong, Catherine. If I may call you Catherine?"

"Of course." _Anything but "angel", please_. Though she was honored that Marquita had bestowed such a designation on her, even in a state of pain and delirium, Catherine was never much for pet names. 

"Again, I'm sorry. You're a very striking woman."

"Thank you…Eli."

"How long have you been a CSI? I'm fascinated by the forensic field."

"I'm sure we can blame the Discovery Channel for that," Catherine gave a wry smile.

"Oh, no. On the contrary, I don't watch much television. My ex-wife watched all these terrible cop- and hospital-dramas and so many reality shows that it basically ruined the experience for me. I don't even own a television anymore."

"You're divorced?" Catherine asked. 

"Yes. Well, not totally. I'm married to my work, as some would say."

"I know the feeling. Any kids?" 

"Two," Dr. Gold held up two fingers. "Rachel is nine; Benjamin is six."

"I have a daughter," Catherine said non-chalantly. "Lindsey. She's almost eleven."

"Are you divorced as well?"

"Thankfully," was Catherine's dry response. 

"You know, in the Jewish tradition, marriage is what they call a _mitzvah_, the highest form of blessing," Dr. Gold sighed. "But so is divorce in some cases, eh?"

"_Oigo eso_," Catherine answered, borrowing a phrase from Ines, whom she now wondered about. 

Dr. Gold chuckled again after a beat of silence. "Strange, isn't it, how we get off topic so? What were we talking about?"

Just then, Catherine's cellphone vibrated on her hip, making her jump a little. "Hold that thought, Eli." She flipped open the cell. "Willows."

"Wrap up whatever you're doing. We have to go. Now."

"Grissom? Where did you disappear to? Are you still in the—"

"Meet me in the lobby in five minutes."

"Sure, okay," Catherine said, but Grissom had already hung up on her. She closed her cell and hooked it back onto her jeans. Then she turned to Dr. Gold. "Eli, I'm so sorry but that was my supervisor. I really have to go."

She and Dr. Gold stood at exactly the same time, Dr. Gold perhaps eagerly so. 

"I, um…Catherine," he blurted. "I need to know…would you…would you care to go to dinner with me?" 

Catherine was knocked for six. "Why?" 

Dr. Gold frowned. "Why not?" 

She was hoping he'd say that. She sized him up with her eyes and gave a short nod. "Deal. When Marquita Dali regains consciousness, have someone give us at CSI a call and I'll be back. We'll take it from there." 

As Catherine walked out of the cafeteria, she could hear Eli Gold call out after her, "Save a place in Heaven for me, angel."


	13. The Mystery

Catherine and Grissom drove back to CSI HQ in silence. Total silence. Catherine had tried to turn on the radio, even giving up her usual soft rock for some classical, but Grissom promptly flicked it off. 

When Catherine parked the Tahoe, the engine had barely cooled before Grissom unbuckled his seatbelt and then got out of the vehicle, practically stomping into the building. 

"Grissom?" Catherine called after him. "Grissom! GRISSOM?! Hey, Gil! Come on, I _know_ you can hear me!"

But Grissom ignored her and kept walking. Catherine was miffed.

What had happened at Las Vegas Medical? He seemed perfectly fine when he'd left Catherine with Ines Dali. Had he seen or heard something? 

Catherine now had two mysteries to solve—the Stop-n-Go, and what the hell was wrong with Grissom. 

"Warrick, Sara, the Stop-n-Go robbery needs some extra eyes, ears and hands," Grissom said, coming into the breakroom. "I hope you were filled in while I was away and if not, _get_ filled in—ask Nick. Since you two weren't in the field tonight, I'd like you to do some lab work. Sara, you have some fingerprinting to do and Warrick, Catherine's got a surveillance tape for you."

Sara and Warrick, who had been gossiping, turned and looked at Grissom as if he had three heads.

"What?" Grissom swiped at his nose with his sleeve non-chalantly.

"How was your dinner with Chloe?" Sara asked.

He cocked his head and gave Sara one of his infamous looks and then glanced at Warrick, wondering if he should answer in his presence.

"Sara was telling me the story," Warrick said quickly. "Pretty interesting."

"Sara, this is a personal matter of mine, not yours," Grissom said sternly after a small grunt of disapproval. "I don't want the lab to turn into the headquarters of the _National Inquirer_."

Blushing, Sara got up and poured herself some coffee and chugged it black.

"So you have a sister?" Warrick asked Grissom.

"_Had_ a sister, Warrick," Grissom corrected. "She unfortunately passed on quite a long time ago."

"Oh yeah," Warrick was sheepish. "Sara told me she died of eclampsia."

"Did she?" Grissom crossed his arms and glared at Sara.

"Okay, you never told me it was a secret!" Sara exclaimed.

"If I wanted my life to be an open book, I would have left it on a table somewhere for everyone in the damn bureau to read."

Sara heaved a great sigh and hung her head. "Sorry…sorry."

"In answer to your question, Sara, dinner was fine. Despite your inability to keep secrets, you picked a good restaurant."

"Thanks," Sara perked up a little.

"Catherine and I are returning to Las Vegas Medical later tonight and talk to Marquita Dali and Adrian Lowe, two of the witnesses, if they're alert. Unfortunately, both were severely injured," Grissom said to her and Warrick, "so you can get me on my cell if you need me. Warrick? The tape. Sara? Fingerprints."

As soon Grissom stalked out, Warrick turned to Sara.

"Is he okay?" he said in a low voice.

Sara shrugged. "Nick says he was acting really weird over the phone. Maybe it's this whole thing with Chloe. It's getting him sort of…I don't know. He just seems very confused all the time."

"Slipping into dotage?"

"I heard that!" came Grissom's aggravated voice.

Sara covered her mouth and giggled through her hand.

Warrick bit the inside of his cheek and tried not to speak anymore. 

"Is he gone?" Sara whispered. 

Carefully peering out from the break room, Warrick nodded. "He's turned the corner."

"Whew."

"So…what was Nick saying?"

"Grissom said something about having no more surprises. He'd had enough of them, or something."

"That's all this job is," Warrick sighed. "Surprises."

Just then, Catherine walked by the break room, spotted Warrick and Sara and entered. "Either of you seen Grissom?"

"You mean Oscar the Grouch?" Sara wrinkled her nose. "He went that-a-way." The pointed her thumb down the hallway.

"Warrick, you're just the person I wanna see." Catherine delved into the cloth bag she was holding and withdrew the surveillance tape from Stop-n-Go. "I assume you know what this is?"

"It's definitely not a cupcake," Warrick said as Catherine put the tape in his hand. 

"Unfortunately, no. Sara, down in evidence is a gun we found at the scene. Fingerprint it, analyze it, run it through AFIS like crazy, take it down to ballistics, have it classified…"

Sara nodded, "Got it."

"Did Nick brief you guys?"

"Yeah, he gave us everything before you guys got here."

"Good. The only thing I have to add is this: walk on eggshells when you're around Grissom, okay? He's moodier than a stepped-on hornet." 

Warrick and Sara nodded and agreed. 

"Let's get to work," Catherine concluded and left. 

Nick Stokes was in the lab cleaning up from his experiments with the specimens from Pancha Nichols, Marquita Dali and the clay from underneath Mason Ziegler's fingernails when Grissom lumbered by, a scowl on his face.

"What's up?" Nick asked, trying to play it cool.

"Well, Sara's not going with you to Mason Ziegler's. Take Catherine."

"Why?" 

"Because Sara wasn't at the scene."

"But—"

"I'm the boss around here, so just do it, alright?"

Usually Nick didn't mind Grissom's moodiness but right now his supervisor had a PMS attitude of a thirteen year old. Before he could open his mouth and retort, Grissom was gone. 

Catherine was next to stop by, looking annoyed, but Nick called out to her anyway. "Hey, Cath?"

"Nick, don't _speak_ to me unless you've seen Grissom. Don't even _let_ those words escape your mouth."

"I _have_ seen Grissom!"

"Oh…" Catherine was embarrassed. "Sorry. What'd he say?" 

"You're coming to Mason Ziegler's place, once we find out where he lives."

"Ah, Mason Ziegler. The Bob Marley pothead. I thought Sara—?"

"Me too," Nick shrugged. "Grissom wants Sara to work on some fingerprinting."

"And I just put her to work with the classification of the gun I found, so I guess it's good she's not coming." Catherine paused. "Was that the right thing to say?" 

"No, but I get your meaning." 

"I'll check out where Mason Ziegler lives, check out employee records from the Stop-n-Go, call up the manager."

"Okay. You do that."

"And what are you going to do?"

"Mmm," Nick pretended to think hard. "Sit on my butt?"

"Come on, Stokes. Be sociable. Help me out with Mason Ziegler."

"Okay, okay. I'm coming."


	14. The Fingerprints

A/N: I accredit all my ballistics and gun information to www.beretta.com. Special thanks to the gun enthusiasts on that website and to Janet Finch for making the Beretta Astrid's favorite gun in White Oleander .

Sara found the gun exactly where Catherine said it would be. A little black gun, as unintimidating as a water pistol, encased in plastic. She took it and the small evidence bag of bullets that were taken from the bodies of Pancha Nichols and Mason Ziegler to ballistics, where Wesley Kildare was on shift, taking over for Bobby. 

Wesley was one of Sara's favorite ballisticians. He was one of the new guys, been at CSI for only five years, but he was a fast learner and extremely erudite in his field. He was about twenty-seven and kept his hair buzzed close to his head, so determining its color was impossible, and he had dark green eyes. Plus he was about as gay as they came, which was no secret at CSI.

Commonly called Kill or Killshot due to his last name and expertise and adorned with more tattoos than Sara could count, Wesley Kildare was from New York, and proud of it. He was a reformed gang member—probably the only gay gang member in that tri-state area—turned science geek. His extensive knowledge of the ballistic field earned him a high ranking. 

"Kill," Sara said, coming into the ballistics lab, "I got a gun for you."

"Aha," Kill smiled. He sat up from his chair, which he was tilting back in, reading a book in a tank top and a pair of jeans covered in pen doodles. A stereo in the corner softly played Paul McCartney, a welcome change from the usual heavy metal that secreted from Greg's DNA lab like a nasty wound. "And it's not even my birthday."

Sara laughed and then became serious. She held out the bags with the gun and bullets. "This is evidence in a robbery/murder case at a little convenience store on Howell called the Stop-n-Go. Two people dead. This is probably the murder weapon; it was found at the scene and these are the bullets pulled from the bodies of the vics. What can you tell me about this little number?" she nodded towards the gun.

Kill tugged on a pair of gloves and as he did so, Sara admired his tattoos. She estimated there were at least a dozen on his right arm alone. Then her eyes wandered to the book he was reading as Kill pulled on his lab coat.

"_A Clockwork Orange_?" she commented.

"Yeah. Have you read it?" Kill asked, taking the gun from it's bag.

"In tenth grade," Sara shrugged. "I walked around speaking in nadsat for about a week afterwards. It's a…zammechat razkazz," she said, using the language Anthony Burgess had created specifically for the novel.

"I always liked: 'what does God want? Does God want goodness or choice of goodness? Is the man who chooses the bad perhaps in some way better than the man who has the good imposed on him?'" Kill shot Sara a sideways glance and flashed a prizewinning smile like a thespian finishing a successful audition. 

"That's not nadsat. Where's the fun in it?" Sara grinned. 

"It's a really great passage. Ooooh, this is a nice one, no doubt," Kill exclaimed, changing directions once he had the firearm in his hands. He held it carefully so he wouldn't smudge any prints that were on there. "Yeah, yeah. When I was still in the Wulf Pac, Denmark used a gun like this to kill Jimmy-Jimmy Larson from the Red Triangle Boys ten years ago. Damn, that was a _great_ rumble. Jimmy-Jimmy comes out all yellin' like how he's gonna kill Denmark and shit and the sonuvabitch pulls a letter opener. A _letter opener_, Sara! He might as well have drawn a credit card. We were all laughing like crazy. But the laughter sure as hell stopped when Denmark whipped out his…Beretta pistol." Kill twirled the gun on his finger and laid it on his examination table.

"It's a Beretta?" Sara crossed her arms.

"Cute aren't they?" Kill sank back into his chair. "Sleek, simple and discreet—much like a Kate Spade purse. Do you like Kate Spade?"

"I'm a couple of zeros short in my paycheck to be sporting a Kate Spade, Kill. Let's not get off topic or else we're not going to the mall after shift." 

"Well, fine, be like that," pouted Kill. "Unlike me, the Beretta compact pistol is _only_ about seven inches long and four and a half inches high. Weighs about two pounds. This particular baby is a Beretta Cougar. Or, more specifically, and eighty-forty Mini Cougar F. The Cougar's a relatively new model."

"It's new?" 

"Yeah. Well, not _new_-new, but it's new as guns go. I'd say this model came out three years ago, about six years after I did," Kill kidded. "It's one inch shorter in the grip and weighs about four ounces lighter than the Cougar L, its big brother. The one that Denmark used to kill Jimmy-Jimmy was a Beretta 21 Bobcat, but I digress."

"Okay, great," Sara said, nodding. "Uh, at the scene, there was a total of eleven shots fired at the robbery so the eighty-forty would work right?" 

"Surely. The eighty-forty Beretta can carry up to eleven magazines, as opposed to the eight thousand which can carry fifteen and the eighty-forty-five which can carry eight. This thing was practically _made_ for robberies, especially the Cougar here. See how all the edges are rounded? It's carefully finished, which makes it virtually snag-proof and superbly simple to draw and conceal. It's one of the most advanced pistols in its _class_. It's called 'user-friendly', due to the contoured frame and grips that make it easy to control during firing." Kill stroked the barrel like a kitten.

"What can you tell me about the bullets the Cougar can take?"

"A spectrum, my dear Miss Sidle, a _spectrum_. A lot of heavy shit: nine millimeter, 357 SIG, 40 Smith & Wesson or the 45 ACP."

"Wow. High power."

"Hell yes. This thing couples 'concealability' with _serious_ firepower. This little prick can pack a punch, lemme tell ya, Sara. Everyone thinks the _Glock_ is the perfect gun? Puh-leeze, they are _so_ wrong! I mean, I could _kiss_ this gun, it's so perfect."

"Please don't, Kill," Sara winced. "Grissom would be all over your ass for contaminating evidence."

"I wouldn't mind having him on my ass," joked Kill. 

Sara shuddered. "Ew. Kill, come _on_."

"What's the matter, don't like a pretty man like me all over your sugar daddy?" 

"You know, you're lucky that this Beretta Cougar F isn't loaded right now."

"I know…I know. But listen, you better jump on that man's bones before they turn to dust."

"Kill!" 

"Just giving you my professional opinion!" Kill held his hands up in defense.

"Your professional opinion is only valid in the field of firearms only. So let's talk about that other than my sex life, okay? Talk about the bullets."

"Okay, okay." Kill sighed and emptied the bullets onto his table beside the Beretta. There were seven so far: six from Pancha Nichols and one from Mason Ziegler. The two bullets lodged in Adrian Lowe had yet to be handed over. He whistled along to "Blackbird" as he held each bullet up to the light, rolled it around between his thumb and forefinger and then carefully placed it upright. "Congratulations, Sara Sidle. It's a healthy, standard nine millimeter."

"Is it?" Sara got a little excited. 

"Looks like it." Kill rubbed his cheek with his forearm.

"That's pretty standard. Should be tricky but you said the Beretta Cougar was a new model, right?"

"No, not really. It's at least three years old." 

"Think we could get any prints off any of the bullets?"

"Nope," Kill shrugged.

"No? Why?" Sara crinkled her brow.

"You asked me what I think, and I'm telling you. It's not my job to think. I do the CSI shit work."

"You think playing with guns and bullets is shit work, Kill? Let's trade places for a day and after you go through liquefied body parts and decomposing flesh, we'll see who does the shit work."

"Do you need some Midol, sweetie?"

"You know, I hate you so much right now."

Gil Grissom was turning a corner on his way to the DNA lab when he slammed right into Sara Sidle who was exiting ballistics.

"Oh!" they both exclaimed at the same time and both went down to collect the papers that had scattered all over the floor, which they were both carrying. 

"Sorry," Grissom mumbled. 

"My bad," Sara apologized. "Um, I just got out of ballistics."

"I know. What'd you find out?" asked Grissom as he stood up. Sara followed suit.

"Kill said that the gun is an eighty-forty Mini Beretta Cougar F. The bullets are a nine millimeter and that this particular model was relatively new," Sara replied, chipper about her findings and hoping to please her dour supervisor.

"Oh?" Grissom said, somewhat disconnected. 

"Gris, are you okay?" Sara blurted suddenly. 

"Huh?"

"Well, you're just…" she sighed. "You know what? Never mind. I gotta go get to my fingerprinting."

"Okay," Grissom tilted his head as he watched Sara walk away, who was looking the way he felt right now—completely tired and utterly angry at the world.

"Beretta _Cougar_?" Nick scratched his head. "I've never even heard of those. Is it a new model?"

"Wesley Kildare said it was at least three years old," Sara explained. Nick and Catherine were getting ready to take their track to Mason Ziegler's home, the address of which they'd gotten from Stop-n-Go employee records. They'd contacted Steven Markham, the manager, who'd given them all the specifics. Mason lived with his older brother on Clearview Road, quite a drive from HQ.

"Relatively new," Nick nodded. "What's it carry?"

"Well, it can take, according to Kill, a proverbial spectrum of bullets, including nine mil, which is what was found in Pancha Nichols and Mason Ziegler."

"Great start," Catherine complimented. "Nick, we better be getting a move-on."

"Gotcha," Nick said, tugging his CSI cap on his head. "Good luck on the fingerprinting, Sara."

"Thanks," Sara sighed.

"Oh, and make sure Warrick is on the video tape?" Catherine reminded her. "Check up on him every few minutes."

"Will do."

"And remember—Grissom equals eggshells."

Sara didn't have to be told _that_ twice.

Sara enjoyed peace and quiet in a little corner of the lab as she took apart the Beretta and dusted each part carefully and hoped Kill didn't smudge anything. As much as she adored Kill, he'd royally pissed her off. Usually, she let him because sometimes it was funny. But even Kill knew he'd crossed the line and had apologized with a peck on the cheek as Sara left the ballistics lab and a promise to get her a Kate Spade bag for her next birthday.

"You'll be twenty-nine, right?" he winked.

To Sara's contentment, there was only one set of fingerprints on the Beretta. This was not unusual and it made everything easier, because this would point them to the shooter and hopefully end the case as quickly as possible.

"Tah-dah!" she sang to herself as she held up the transfer tape up to the light with one clear fingerprint off the magazine holder and a partial off the trigger. She did not, however, find one on the firing pin release, which she found odd. _How do you fire a gun without cocking it first?_

She scanned the print into the computer and entered it into AFIS. Then she sat back with a can of Dr. Pepper and waited for a match. She watched all the fingerprints, green from the screen's LCD, flash by, one by one. She sat back and relaxed as she sipped her coffee.

"Sara?" 

Sara jumped at the sound of another voice. She had grown accustomed to working quietly. "Yes?" she said hoarsely before she turned around. 

"What's up?"

She turned. It was Grissom, who was looking like a lost little boy, apologetic, his hair damp against his forehead. 

"Just waiting for a match on the Beretta to pop up on AFIS," Sara replied and yawned unintentionally. 

"Tired?" 

"Oh, just a bit," Sara gave a half-moon smile and then relaxed. "Hell of a forty-eight hours for you, huh?"

"Tell me about it," Grissom sank into the chair beside her and looked unperturbed for the first time in a few days. "I now know why people complain about their families."

"What's there to complain about? Don't you like Chloe?" 

"Oh…Chloe…yes, I like her."

"Then what do you have to complain about?"

"It's not just Chloe," Grissom sighed. "It's much more than that."

Just as Grissom was going to let the Nicolette story out, the computer beeped and the flashing window popped up: MATCH FOUND.

"Ah, wonderful." Sara sat up and clicked on it. The read for a few seconds and then gave a queer look. "Uh, Grissom?" she tapped her forefinger to the computer screen. "You might wanna take a look at this."

Grissom took his glasses from his jacket pocket, slid them on and peered at what Sara was pointing out: the one set of fingerprints on the gun belonged to Chloe Haydn.

"That can't be right," Grissom whispered.

"That's your niece!" 

"How did Chloe's prints get on AFIS?" 

"Ummm, shoplifting," Sara replied, scrolling down. "Back in 1999. Huh. You'll never believe what she took."

"What?"

"According to police reports: a package of diapers, three cans of baby formula, a half a gallon of milk and a bottle of NyQuil."

"Shane," Grissom said after a pause.

"Who?"

Grissom drummed his fingers on the computer table. "Shane is Chloe's four year old son."

"So in 1999, he would have been a newborn."

"She stole to provide for him." 

Sara skimmed the report again. "It says she hid the items in the baby carriage."

"How'd they catch her?"

"Eyewitness."

"Thought so."

"Grissom?" Sara tucked some hair behind her ear. "What do you want to do?"

"What do you mean?" Grissom asked, removing his glasses.

"She's your niece."

"So?"

"You'd really convict your niece?" 

"She's not my niece right now. She's a suspect," Grissom said, beginning to pace. "We treat her like we treat any other suspect. Regardless. Right now, Chloe Haydn is the possible shooter in the Stop-n-Go robbery, as hers are the only prints on the gun found at the scene. Warrick's looking at the surveillance tape from the night of the shooting. I'll tell him to look for Chloe." Grissom turned to leave the room, but before he did, he looked Sara square in the eye.

"What?" she said. 

"This," Grissom replied. "This conversation. It stays between _us_, understand?"

"What conversation?"

"You got it."

Sara stared back at the computer screen. She was in disbelief. Then she heard the door open and close sharply and Grissom was gone from the room. 


	15. The Garage

When Catherine and Nick pulled up at 17 Clearview Road, home of Mason Ziegler, it was not what they expected.

It was a quaint little one-story brick ranch house, with a white sloped roof and the door and shutters were painted a cobalt blue. The garage was open but no cars were inside. Four young men were sprawled in the driveway in the shade of the garage door in rusty beach lounge chairs.

"Where's Beaver?" Nick asked.

"Hopefully not smoking pot in the garage," Catherine gestured towards the garage gathering.

They gathered their field kits, tugged on their CSI vests and walked up their driveway.

The four young men were all in their early to mid-twenties. Two had dreadlocks like Mason Ziegler had had, one was shaved completely bald and the other had spiked hair that was dyed bright blue. The bald one and one of the dreadlocked wore sunglasses. There was a stereo nearby had bad reception and playing heavy metal broadcasted from the local college radio station. The thick smell of marijuana hung over them and the garage like a damp rag and they all held the joints out in the open, unaware of Nick and Catherine's presence. 

"Halt, who goes there?" said the bald one. The other three snickered.

"Uh, Crime Scene Investigators," Catherine said raising an eyebrow. 

"We're looking for Mason Ziegler," Nick said.

"Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazzzzzz!" came the howl of the dreadlocked guy in sunglasses. 

"Shut up, dickweed," the blue-haired one said listlessly. His joint hung from his hand loosely and threatened to drop any second.

"Do you guys _know_ Mason Ziegler?" asked Nick.

"We know Mazz. He's our guy," the bald one said after taking a long drag on his joint. 

"Yeah…you looking for him?" said the dreadlocked guy without the sunglasses. 

"Are you guys _cops_?" blurted the blue-haired one suddenly, his enervated body suddenly becoming rigid. 

"Fuck, you're cops?!" exclaimed the bald one. "Shit, yo. We don't got nothing. We're fuckin' _legal_." He dropped his joint on the pavement of the driveway. It still smoked.

"Uh, we're not cops," Catherine said. "We're Crime Scene Investigators."

"Hey, I've got something you can investigate," the blue-haired one smirked and, to Catherine's disgust, made an inappropriate gesture to the crotch of his jeans.

"Back the fuck up, Freak," the bald one said. "They're cops."

"We are _not_ cops," Nick stressed.

"Then what the hell do you want with Mazz?" the dreadlocked one in sunglasses asked. 

"We just want to know if this is where he lives. Is it?" Catherine put her hand on her hip, growing intolerant.

"You want answers? What are you gonna give us?" 

"Yeah," the one without sunglasses chuckled. "You gotta give us something. You want something from us, we want something from you. Give us some boobies!" 

"Hells yeah!" the bald one laughed loudly. "Show us your tits!"

Nick grabbed his cap off his head and threw it down. "Okay, that's it. You all better show this lady some damn respect or we're gonna gather all your asses up and take you down to the police station."

"Hey," the bald one got up out of his lounge chair and approached Nick, over whom he towered by half a foot. "Fuck you, man. We're just trying to help you out."

"You're being more successful at royally pissing off a law enforcement associate. Now sit the hell down and give us some answers about Mason Ziegler or else—"

"Or else what?" the bald one narrowed his eyes.

"Or else I got the Las Vegas Police Department on speed dial and they'll be all over your asses like white on rice and then we'll really have a problem."

"Hey, Cole," the blue-haired one said. "Sit the fuck down."

The bald one, Cole, sat slowly and then picked up his joint and took a drag. He closed his eyes and sat back. 

"Calm the hell down, Cole," said the dreadlocked one without sunglasses. "Relax, man."

"What do you think I'm doing, Baker?" Cole snapped.

"Hey, man," the dreadlocked guy with the sunglasses stood up and approached Catherine and Nick. "Cole's been really tweaked lately. Sorry about that. Can I offer you a sacrificial smoke?" he held up a joint.

"No, thanks," the CSI's replied simultaneously. 

"Then allow me to introduce myself. I am Zip. That's Baker, Freak and Cole."

Zip didn't offer a handshake and neither did the CSI's. 

"Can we get your real names?" Nick asked.

"No," Zip said simply. 

"Why?"

"I don't remember what their real names are," Zip snorted a laugh. "Sorry, man, sorry. Sorry. You guys want a smoke?" 

"No thank you," Nick said firmly. "We'd like to know about Mason Ziegler."

"Who?"

"Uh, Mazz?"

"Ohhh," Zip grinned. "Dude, yeah. Mazz…Mazz…Uh, he lives here. This is _his_ place, man."

"We know that," Catherine said. "What do you know about him?"

"He's not home right now, but if you leave your name and number and a brief message after the tone, he'll get back to as soon as possible," Zip snorted again. 

"What can you tell us about him?" Catherine repeated. 

"Uh…he's a guy? He's got…hair…and like, tallish-shortish, kinda? Something? Hey, you guys want a smoke?"

"No thank you."

"So, Mazz is a guy, with hair and is tallish-shortish?" Nick raised an eyebrow and pretended to understand and take this stoner seriously. 

"Yeah, yeah. Um, you guys want—?"

"No, we don't want a smoke," Catherine said, exasperated.

"Then I can't help you," Zip replied and meandered back to his lawn chair, which collapsed when he plopped down on it. This caused the other three to burst out in hysterical laughter. Cole even rolled out of his own chair, holding his stomach since he was laughing so hard.

"Fuck you all," Zip muttered. 

"Can any of you space cowboys give us any other information about Mazz, _besides_ how he looks?" Nick readjusted his CSI cap. 

"I know his birthday!" Freak, the blue-haired one, exclaimed.

"What is it?"

"Uh…it's somewhere between January and December."

"For Godssake," Catherine muttered under her breath. 

"Yeah, I know. I'm glad I didn't inhale, either," Nick replied.


	16. The Studio

As Catherine and Nick stood outside of Mason Ziegler's garage waiting for a straight answer from the potheads, a clean-cut young man descended a side staircase attached to the outside of the house. He had slicked-back dark blonde hair, honey-colored eyes, over which wore small rimless glasses. He wore a baby blue button-down T-shirt with the top three buttons undone with a pair of jeans. His feet sported hiking boots.

"Ah good, I thought I heard voices," he said, flashing a suspiciously white smile. "Gentleman, lady, my name is Greg Ziegler. Please excuse the peanut gallery—they're not mine, I rent hourly. Can I help you?" 

"I'm Nick Stokes and this is Catherine Willows from the Las Vegas Crime Lab," Nick explained. "We're here about—"

"Let me guess. You're here about Mason Ziegler?"

"Yeah," Catherine said. "How did you know?"

"Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazzzzzz!" hooted Baker, again. 

The young man ignored Baker. "Like I said, I'm _Greg_ Ziegler. Mason is my little brother. When I heard the word 'crime', his name is synonymous. It's no secret he's not an angel. He _has_ been missing for some time but that's not unusual."

"It's not?"

"No. Well, last we saw him he was on his way to work and sometimes he'll just forget where he's going and drive around until he runs out of gas or finds a random motel. He'll come back in a day or two."

"He just…forgets?" Catherine crinkled her forehead.

Greg scuffed his feet. "I'm not going to lie to you—you look too official. Mason…well, he smokes _massive_ amounts of marijuana, as you can guess from the peanuts baking in the sun over there."

Nick and Catherine shot each other looks and then glanced at the "peanut gallery". They still hadn't moved from their lawn chairs. Baker was beginning to twitch and Zip was now engrossed in a single potato chip, holding it up in front of his eyes. 

"Can we go somewhere private to talk? Somewhere you feel comfortable?" Nick asked. 

Greg Ziegler raised an eyebrow. "Yeah. Follow me."

"Hey Greg!" shouted Cole. "Just a heads up—the blonde won't take off her shirt!"

The others hooted and Baker slapped Cole a high-five and then pounded fists.

Greg shook his head and turned to Catherine, "I'm sorry. They're Mason's friends. I don't invite them, he does. Sometimes they never leave. Bunch of sad cases."

"It's alright," Catherine said, now blushing and feeling self-conscious.

Greg turned and climbed the same set of steps he'd gone down to greet the CSI's in the first place. "This is where I spend most of my time," he said as they came to a screen door. 

It was a separate room alienated from the rest of the house and this staircase was the only entrance. There were three large windows on the eastern wall, letting in the afternoon sunlight. Posters from several art colleges were posted on the walls, along with some concert advertisements for Phish, Blind Melon, Live and Incubus. It was set up like an art studio, only instead of paintings, it contained sculptures. Some were finished, painted and covered in plastic. Others were in various forms of completion. There were a few pottery wheels positioned besides large blocks of red clay. 

A pretty girl with sleepy eyes and dark blonde hair wearing large headphones attached to a stereo system over her ears and a pair of faded, paint-covered overalls was hunched over one of the wheels that was facing one of the windows. Her tongue, which was pierced with a neon orange stud, was between her teeth and her hands, brown from the wet clay, were meticulously working on a vase. Her right bare foot—three toes glinting with silver rings—worked the pedal of the wheel while the left tapped to music only she could hear.

Greg tapped the girl on the shoulder. She jumped and looked behind her. She smiled and turned off the pottery wheel and took off her headphones. 

"Hey," she greeted Greg with a smile. 

"Meinka," Greg said, a hand on her shoulder. "These are…I'm sorry, I've forgotten your names…"

"We're CSI's," Catherine said. "I'm Catherine Willows. This is Nick Stokes."

"I'm Meinka, Meinka Hoch, Greg's girlfriend," the girl said, getting up. "It's wonderful to meet you."

When Meinka stood, it was very obvious that she was wearing _nothing_ underneath her overalls. Neither she nor Greg were embarrassed by this. Nick fought his mouth hanging open and Catherine tried not to stare as they shook hands with her. It was not unusual to see bare breasts inside a Las Vegas strip club, but in the open like this was something new, especially for Catherine. Meinka also did not notice that she had forgotten to wipe her hands before she greeted the CSI's. Nick stared in annoyance at his now-brown palm and wiped it off with a rubber glove. Catherine just smeared it on the knee of her jeans. 

"What are they doing here, Greg?" Meinka cocked her head as she picked up a nearby rag and wiped her hands. Large peace signs hung from her ears.

"Something about Mason," Greg said. 

"Early this morning there was a robbery at a convenience store called the Stop-n-Go," Nick said. "We understand Mason was an employee there?" 

"When he showed up," Meinka mumbled under her breath. 

"Yeah, Mason worked at Stop-n-Go," Greg said. "I got him the job—my friend Steve is the manager and he owed me a favor." 

"Well, like we said, there was a robbery," Catherine said. "Mason was one of the victims. He was shot in the head and killed."

Meinka gasped and put her hand over her mouth. Greg inhaled sharply, gave a curt nod, and sank into a nearby chair.

"I knew it would happen one day," Greg sighed.

"You don't seem very surprised, Greg," Nick frowned.

Meinka got onto her knees and put a hand on Greg's back. "It's okay, babe…"

Greg shrugged her off and Meinka looked as if she was going to cry. She turned to the CSI's apologetically. "When he gets like this, it takes him an hour or so to recover. When his father died he was like this for a few _days_."

"We understand," Catherine nodded.

Meinka lowered her voice to a whisper, "There's nothing we can do right now when he's like this, but do you guys want something to drink? Eat?"

"No thanks," Nick and Catherine replied simultaneously. 

"We actually would like to see Mason's living quarters," Catherine said. 

"Oh…his room? Yeah I can take you there."

Meinka left the studio and Nick and Catherine followed. She bounded down the steps in bare feet, not worried in the slightest about splinters from the wooden staircase. She passed the "peanut gallery", ignoring them and their whoops and swiftly opened the front door of the ranch house. It was obvious this girl was comfortable with her sexuality and nudity to prance around in a houseful of guys without wearing a shirt or even a bra.

"C'mon," she said, calling to Catherine and Nick. They hurried inside, into the air conditioned residence.

"I'm sorry about Greg," Meinka said, leading them into the kitchen.

"It's okay," Catherine said. 

"Hang on a sec…I gotta get a drink." Meinka panted. She opened the refrigerator and ducked her head inside. "You know, Greg always acted like he hated his brother…but deep down he really loved Mason," she continued.

"I know what that's like," Nick, the baby of seven children, commented. 

"You guys _sure_ you don't want something to drink?" Meinka popped up from the fridge. "I got some lemonade. Homemade," she added, making it sound tempting.

"Sure," Nick said, giving in.

"Why not," Catherine shrugged, though she was more anxious than thirsty.

"How long have you been living here?" Nick asked Meinka.

Meinka withdrew the clear pitcher, brimming with refreshing yellow liquid from the fridge and put it on the counter. "Who, Greg and me?"

"Yeah."

"Well, the house really belongs to Greg and me," Meinka said, taking three glass tumblers from an overhead cabinet. She poured thee glasses as she spoke. "We bought it four years ago, around the same time Greg's mother Hannah kicked Mason out of the house. She just couldn't stand having him around anymore, just smoking pot and doing nothing. She said it was ruining her social life."

"His mother said that?"

"Hannah's a big shot in her neighborhood," Meinka said. "A regular social butterfly, if you will. Ran charities, hosted every party imaginable, sold Tupperware _and_ Mary Kay, taught mah-jongg and bridge at her home, organized neighborhood social events. Hannah hates everything out-of-the-norm, which was why she practically disowned Greg when she found out he was dating a neo-hippie freakshow like me. I guess having Mason wandering around the house in a stupor just cramped her style, so she kicked him out."

"The butterfly becomes a hornet," Catherine smirked.

"You could say that. Anyway, Mason just kinda followed us out here like a lost puppy and kind of carved himself a niche. Greg really didn't want him to stay, but finally gave in after he understood Hannah had kicked him out for real this time. We told him that he could stay but he had to earn his keep. If he didn't, we warned, he would be kicked out and probably end up staying in a shelter somewhere, or worse, with one of his friends. So Greg got him the job at the Stop-n-Go and he paid two hundred bucks a month for rent," she sighed and shook her head. "It wasn't long before he stopped going to work on a regular basis and started having those shithead bums coming over. But we let Mason stay anyway—he somehow kept coming up with the two hundred for rent."

"Any ideas on how he kept coming up with the money?" Nick asked.

"Oh sure, I had ideas," Meinka sighed as she handed one glass of lemonade to Nick and one to Catherine. "But I never told Greg about them."

"What ideas?" Catherine cocked her head.

"Drug dealing, of course. What else could someone like Mason do? "

Catherine nodded. She should have known. Nick recalled the collection of marijuana and wax paper Grissom had found in Mason's pockets.

"But truthfully, you guys?" Meinka leaned in and Nick fought staring down her overalls and resisted closing his eyes. "Mason really was a good kid when he wanted to be and when he tried. He was so talented, too."

"Talented?" Catherine asked.

"Well, yeah. Some of those sculptures in our studio? They're Mason's."

"Really?"

"Uh-huh. Unfortunately, some of his best work was done when he was high as a kite in an updraft. He made us a lot of money at our craft shows." Meinka gestured at a ceramic tile on the kitchen wall. "That's one of his best tiling works. I wouldn't let him sell it and he gave it to me for Christmas."

Catherine and Nick wandered over to it. It was about a circle with a diameter of about eight inches and it was about an inch thick. It was a carefully carved out crescent moon, cradling an ornate sun. The details were amazing. It was painted over with just the slightest bit of color and then covered with a gesso glaze, making it smooth and shiny.

"Is that what you and Greg do for a living? Make sculptures and such and sell them at craft shows?" Nick asked, turning back to Meinka, who was leaning against the counter. Catherine ambled back to her lemonade.

"Well, during the week I'm a veterinary assistant and Greg's a bank teller. But over the weekend, yeah," Meinka nodded, "we're at craft shows, galleries, flea markets, swap meets. We've been all over Clarke County more than twice. Of _course_, we gave Mason _all_ the credit in the world for everything he's sold, but we _never_ gave him the profits. We both knew where it would go."

"Down the bong," said Nick, picking up his glass of lemonade.

"Bingo."

"That was what was found under Mason's fingernails," he realized. "Clay. That red substance."

Catherine nodded and then asked, "Can we please see Mason's room, now, please?" 

"Oh…sure. Sorry I forgot!" Meinka shook her head. "My mind these days…it must be from breathing the pot air whenever I pass by the garage."

She exited the kitchen and took a sharp right down a hallway, Catherine and Nick on her trail. 

"I warn you," Meinka said, stopping in front of a white door with a large KEEP OUT sign taped on. An unmistakable picture of a pot leaf was taped underneath it. "It's a disaster. Greg referred to it as the devil's nursery."

"I'm sure we've seen worse," Catherine assured her. 

Meinka opened the door and let the CSI's stepped inside. She wasn't kidding and neither was Greg—it had earned it's "devil's nursery" nickname. Clothes were piled everywhere. The bed wasn't really a bed at all, just a bare mattress lifted up a half a foot by a simple box spring. Food was left on plates for God-knows-how-long. Pizza boxes and empty juice cartons littered the floor. A huge stereo system was wedged into a corner, dusty with age and misuse. CD cases glinted from beneath piles of junk. For some reason, a long, thick knotted rope was attached to the ceiling and hung down, nearly touching the carpet. 

"Don't ask about the rope," Meinka said, reading their minds. "Greg and I could never figure it out either."

"Oh…okay," Catherine said. 

"I gotta get back to my work. If you need anything, just come up to the studio. I'll be happy to get it for you."

"Thank you," Nick said, tipping the brim of his CSI cap.

"No problem."

When Meinka left, Nick and Catherine felt dirty just standing in the middle of Mason Ziegler's room.

"Can you say 'pack rat'?" Nick commented.

"I can definitely say disgusting," Catherine wrinkled her nose. "Just breathe out your mouth and you'll survive."

Nick put his field kit down on a single clean spot on a nearby TV tray that was piled high with so many Playboy, Maxim and Hot Rod magazines that it was a miracle the thing hadn't collapsed yet. He opened up the kit and snapped on some rubber gloves. Catherine did the same, but settled for resting her kit on the carpet.

"Have you had all your shots, Cath?" Nick asked teasingly. 

"Have you had yours?" 

"You know it."

"All right then," Catherine sighed. "Let's do some treasure hunting."


	17. The Fight

When Chloe and Grissom had departed after their dinner, she had quickly jotted down the name of the hotel she and Walker were staying at while they were in Las Vegas: the Rhapsody, room 22. Grissom had forgotten about it until he shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and felt the slip of paper, Chloe's girlish scrawl written across it.

He dialed the number of the front desk, which was included on the paper, and hoped that he would be able to reach his niece. He had to tell her about the fingerprints.

"You've reached the Rhapsody Hotel, my name is Ginger, how may I help you?" said the chipper voice of the concierge. 

"Hello, Ginger," Grissom replied. "I'd like to get in touch with one of your guests? Chloe Haydn? Or, it might be under Chloe Jackson?" he took a stab at using Walker's last name. "It would be room twenty-two."

Some keyboard typing. "Yes. Walker and Chloe Jackson, room twenty-two. I'll connect you straightaway. Whom shall I say is calling?"

"Gil Grissom, if you please."

"Please hold."

Grissom waited, tapping his foot restlessly until he heard the ingenuous voice of his niece.

"Gil?" she sounded soft, as if she was in a daze.

"Hi, Chloe," Grissom said cheerfully. "Did I wake you up?"

"No. It's after twelve," Chloe giggled.

Grissom looked at his watch. Ten after noon. "Oh…yeah. Hey, I need to see you for a few minutes. Is that okay?"

"Sure, come on down. I'm just…waiting around for Walker."

"Alright. Oh, and just one question?"

"Yeah?"

"I didn't know you and Walker were married."

"We're not."

"Why are you registered as Walker _and_ Chloe Jackson at the Rhapsody?"

"To avoid confusion, that's all."

That was an appropriate answer. "Okay. I was just curious. Ah, I'll see you in…half hour, okay?"

"Sure. Later," she said lethargically and quietly hung up the phone.

Grissom hung up quickly and grabbed his CSI cap. He walked by Sara in the fingerprinting lab, working on the other samples they'd found from the Stop-n-Go.

"Sara, I'm on my way to talk to Chloe."

"Can I come?"

"Uh, no. I'd rather it would just be the two of us."

"Oh…I get it." 

"When Nick and Catherine come back, tell them they can reach me on my cellphone. Remember what I said: I want everything when it happens."

"Okay," Sara flashed a small smile. "Have fun. Tell Chloe I said hello."

Grissom gave Sara cockeyed look. "Okay."

As Grissom approached the hotel room that Chloe and Walker were staying in at the Rhapsody, he heard yelling. Loud, harsh words emitting from the purple silk-covered walls. 

"I can't take it anymore!" was the first clear sentence he heard. It sounded like Chloe's voice. 

"If you can't handle something like—" a male's voice was next, starting audible, then becoming muffled. That was Walker, most likely.

Grissom stood beside the door of the correct room number in which Chloe and Walker were and listened for the right time to knock. He knew this was eavesdropping but he didn't care. Besides, he was interested to know what the yelling was about.

"Just shut up, okay?" Chloe was saying, tears in her voice. "I don't want to hear anything from you right now, Walker."

"C'mon Chloe," Walker groaned. "What are you doing?"

A door rolling open, then slamming closed—a closet, most likely.

"You really think I'm gonna stick around? You really think I would sleep in your bed after what I saw? Was that slut the reason you agreed to come to Las Vegas with me? Damn it Walker," Chloe grunted, struggling with something. "You are so full of shit!" 

"You're overreacting!" 

"No, overreacting would be doing _this_!" 

A sharp slap, then silence. 

"You disgust me!" Chloe spat disdainfully after a few minutes. 

"Chloe, I swear to God, I'll—" Walker's voice was rising again. 

__

"Don't you dare hit me!" Chloe screeched. "And I don't want to hear your reason for necking with a whore in the middle of the lounge!" 

"Chloe, what are you doing?" 

"I'm sure as hell not sticking around, that's for God-damn sure!"

The door flung open and Grissom jumped back quickly, or else the swing would have severed his nose. Chloe was dragging a suitcase on wheels and Shane on her hip. Her duct tape purse was on her shoulder. She struggled to maintain balance as she dragged herself and her heavy load out of the room.

"Chloe!" Walker was protesting from inside. He came to the doorway, wearing jeans and no shirt. His running shoes and socks were still on his feet. "Where are you gonna go?"

"What the hell do you care?" 

Chloe didn't notice Grissom standing in the hallway until Walker had shouted, "Fine!" and slammed the door closed behind her. "Be a little bitch!" came another call from inside the room, followed by a loud crash and the shattering of glass. 

"Oh, God…Gil," Chloe's face fell. "God, you probably all of that heard that! I'm such a dumb ass—"

"Chloe, listen—" Grissom spoke quickly but Chloe kept jumping in and pretty soon, they were talking over each other. 

"Walker and I had a huge fight and—"

"I need to talk to you about where you were early this morning—"

"…saw him making out with this brunette at the bar!"

"It's very important that you tell me—"

"…a place to stay. It'll only be for a few days and I _promise_—"

"There was a robbery and we found your prints—"

"…don't take up much room. Just please don't say no."

Grissom and Chloe finished at the same time; he was out of breath and she teary-eyed. 

"God I need a drink," she sighed, biting her lip.

"Me too," whispered Shane, the first words Grissom had ever heard him speak.

Grissom took off his CSI cap and wiped his brow with his sleeve. "Have you eaten lunch yet?" 

"No," Chloe said, shifting Shane from one side of her body to the other.

"I know a diner close by. It's not Il Giardino, but it's good," Grissom gave a half-smile. He couldn't tell her about the fingerprints yet. 

"Okay," replied Chloe softly. "But, Gil?"

"Yeah?" 

"I really do need somewhere to stay. Only for a night or two."

Grissom considered. "I live in a one-bedroom place."

"Do you have a couch?"

"Yes, of course."

"That's fine. Shane and I can share. We won't be around long, just until Walker comes to his senses."

"What happened?" Grissom asked, picking up Chloe's suitcase and walking down the hallway.

"Thank you," Chloe said when Grissom took her bag. She walked alongside him as she explained what happened, "Well, I took Shane out just for a walk to get some fresh air, you know? Walker didn't want to come, said he was tired. We were gone for about two hours and when we came back, I…" Chloe's voice broke and she tried not to cry. "…I saw Walker in the hotel bar, making out with another woman."

Grissom heaved a great sigh. Tales of infidelity were nothing new to him. But he put the suitcase down and wrapped his arms around his niece and grand-nephew in a warm embrace. "Men are assholes," he said sympathetically as Shane wriggled to free himself of the hold of his mother.

Chloe managed a small giggle, "And how would you know?"

"It's a well-known fact," he said, letting go. "Come on. I'm actually hungry."

"Chloe," Grissom said after they had given their order to a worn-out looking overweight waitress whose uniform was stained and tight around her hips. "I hate to bring this up but I must confess the real reason why I was coming to see you."

"Oh…okay, shoot," Chloe said, digging through her purse. She found what she was looking for—a few crayons—and turned her paper placemat over, then gave it to Shane for him to color, which he did eagerly.

"Where were you at say, five in the morning?" 

Chloe paused. "Why?"

"Do you know of a convenience store called the Stop-n-Go?"

"I don't think so."

"There was a robbery there, very early in the morning. Two people dead, two severely injured." 

"Oh, my." Chloe crinkled her brow.

"Indeed." Grissom hesitated, wondering how to say what he was going to say next. "I don't quite know how to say this, Chloe, but you're a mature, intelligent young woman, so I'm just gonna go for it."

"Go for it," Chloe agreed, privately delighted at the compliment he had paid her.

"I was at the Stop-n-Go to investigate the robbery. One of my CSI's found the gun, still in the store. Practically still smoking." 

"Well, that's good."

"I suppose. When a CSI finds a gun, the first thing that's done to it, besides classification, is it is dusted for prints." he looked his niece in her autumn-colored eyes. "Chloe," he said evenly. "The only prints found on that gun were yours."

Chloe's expression turned bleak, "Gil, I…"

"I'm not saying you did anything," Grissom said, "but if there's anything you'd like to tell me, uncle to niece or suspect to investigator—"

"I'm a _suspect_?"

"—now would be the time," he finished.

Dumbstruck, Chloe sat back and buried her face in her hands for a second and then lifted her head. "I was out taking a jog like I usually do back home in Arizona," she began slowly. "It's just my way of relieving stress. I customarily go very, very early in the morning, before Shane and Walker wake up. I was just jogging along and I realized I needed some…feminine products," she said slowly. "Don't make me explain."

"No need," Grissom assured her. 

"Well, I was sort of…excited, you know? If that's the right word for it, that is. Because I had feared I was pregnant for about a month. Anyway, I decided to stop at the first store I came across and I found this…little convenience store. I honestly don't remember what it was called, but it apparently was Stop-n-Go. I made a beeline for…what I needed and then I began to pick up a few extra things. Walker had forgotten his razor in Arizona so I got him a few disposable ones. I got Shane a new coloring book and some crayons." Chloe stopped her story and looked down at Shane. She smoothed his dark hair, which was long and starting to curl up, making him look like David Cassidy. 

"Was anyone else in the store with you?" 

"I saw a Spanish woman and her daughter," Chloe said. "And a really cute guy."

_Pancha Nichols, Marquita Dali, Adrian Lowe_. "Go on," Grissom prompted. 

"Well, this…guy, I think…he came into the store. I didn't get a good look at him."

"Was his face covered?"

"No, but he wore reflective sunglasses that covered a good portion of it, and all his clothes were black. I didn't like the way this guy looked, so I turned my back and pretended to go about my business. Then I heard a gunshot and a thud…then screaming. More gunshots…two, three, four…I ducked and hid in the farthest corner of the store."

"Okay. How did your fingerprints get on the gun?"

"There was a lot of yelling…in Spanish, I think. There were more shots and then I don't know what caused it to happen, but I saw, out of the corner of my eye, something black flew threw the air. I covered my head like this," Chloe ducked down and threw her arms over the back of her skull, "so it wouldn't hit me. Then, when I heard it land and I lifted my head to see what it was…it was the gun." She sucked back a sob as she lowered her arms.

"Don't stop, Chloe. Remember, it's just you and me," Grissom took Chloe's hand in his and squeezed a little in comfort. 

"I don't know what I was thinking…I picked it up and I held it close to me…like I was a Charlie's Angel or something. I was so scared that I wasn't _thinking_, Gil. I just kept thinking about Shane and what would happen to him without me and how I couldn't stand growing up without a mother…" Chloe bit her lip and tears began to flow like a silent river. She took a deep breath, wiped her tears away and exhaled slowly. "I'm sorry for getting so worked up."

"It's alright." Grissom said softly. 

"Momma," Shane whispered. "Are you OK, Momma?"

Chloe responded to her son with a kiss on his forehead, which, in true boy fashion, was wiped off. 

"Chloe," Grissom said, "anything else?"

"No," Chloe said. As soon as I heard someone leave, I followed not soon after. I just dropped the gun and ran like hell."

"Didn't you see anything as you were leaving?" Grissom tilted his head. 

Chloe closed and opened her eyes slowly. "A lot of red."


	18. The Zipper

Nick Stokes and Catherine Willows were now two hours into wading in ankle-deep garbage in Mason Ziegler's bedroom and they had come up empty-handed so far, but they had managed to clean a good part of it. They could now see the carpet, which was in desperate need of a steam cleaner, underneath all the clothes and rubbish and CD's…and petrified food.

"Ugh. Remind me to never eat pizza again," Catherine groaned as she held up a plate with an aged slice of pizza on it and turned the plate upside down. She and Nick watched in horror as the slice of pizza didn't fall—just stuck to the plate. Not only that, it was rock hard.

"Same here," Nick winced. "Jeez. I'm starting to think inactivity was not Hannah Ziegler's only reason for kicking Mason out of the house."

"I can only hope and pray Lindsey never gets this bad," said Catherine as she shook out the sheets of Mason's makeshift bed, the mattress-and-box-spring deal. "Nick? Help me lift this mattress?"

Nick shuffled over and took one side of the mattress by it's handles and Catherine took the other. 

"Count of three?" Nick asked.

"Go for it."

"One…two…three!"

They lifted and managed to plop it onto the floor. It landed softly, cushioned by the piles of garbage and such. They heard something crack, possibly a CD case, but they weren't interested in that. The only interest they had was the drug paraphernalia hidden beneath the mattress.

"Holy shit," Nick chuckled, taking his hat off and wiping his brow with his forearm. "Some surprise, huh, Cath?"

"Never would have guessed," Catherine murmured sarcastically, kneeling to examine it all.

Mason had, for the better part, been very creative in "hiding" his bongs and pipes. He had cut out a large square of fabric that covered the box spring and filled the hollow to the brim with every piece of drug paraphernalia he owned. 

"Bag it all," was Catherine's solution. 

"Hey, Cath, ever see the movie _Half-Baked_?" Nick asked as he picked up a rather large party bong, one that Mason had in there lengthwise. It stood at least two feet tall. "Meet the star—Billy Bong Thorton."

"Very funny, Stokes."

"Nah, dude," Nick said, making his voice spacey and disconnected, not unlike Zip outside. "That's _Smokes_."

"I pity your future children," Catherine shook her head and pulled her hair back with an elastic band. "Let's bag it, drag it back to the lab…and pray we don't get pulled over," Catherine smirked. "Then we dust it for prints and test for DNA, obviously."

"What if these things are new? Maybe this is how Mason kept coming up with the cash to stay here? Meinka _did_ say she thought he was drug dealing. Maybe he's selling accessories, too."

Catherine picked up one of the pipes and sniffed it. "Well, I don't smell anything on these things."

"Could be cleaned after each usage," shrugged Nick. 

"Nick, look around you. Mason wasn't exactly the cleanest human being on planet Earth. You'd really expect he'd remember to clean each and every pipe he used? They'd have to be new."

"Point taken," Nick replied.

By the time Nick and Catherine finished emptying out the box spring, the sun was beginning to set and they had a hefty collection of thirty-two pipes, seventeen bongs and four dozen lighters. 

"My God," Catherine stood back, amazed. 

Nick, however, was confused, "Wait a sec…all this equipment and no pot?" 

"Hmm, you're right. Looks like we'll have to delve deeper."

"Can I get some fresh air first? I think I may catch a disease if I stay here any longer. When I get home I am taking a long, scalding hot shower."

Just as Catherine was about to agree, there was a knock on the doorframe. They turned and saw Greg Ziegler. 

"Hey," he said, his voice throaty. "You do windows too?" He was now dressed down considerably. He was not wearing his button-down shirt anymore, but a white wife-beater stained with paint and clay. His hair was tousled and his glasses were off. His hiking boots were replaced by pair of rubber thongs and a small tattoo of a tribal-looking alligator was on the top of his right foot.

"Hello," Nick nodded. "Been working as hard as us?"

Greg looked down at his wife-beater. "Uh, yeah. I'm working on a collection of drinking vessels to bring to the next show Meinka and I have. Our work is being featured there, so we've been toiling over a hot pottery wheel for weeks. We've been putting in a lot of overtime, especially now, since Mason's…" his voice trailed off and sounded choked with sobs.

"We understand," Catherine said quickly. It was obvious Greg had been working through the pain of his little brother's death.

"Are you guys done?" Greg cocked his head, changing the subject.

"Not even close," Catherine sighed.

Greg craned his neck behind the CSI's and widened his eyes. "What the hell is _that_?"

Nick looked over his shoulder. "Uh, some things we found in Mason's box spring."

"That's more than a few things," Greg said angrily and pulled his glasses from the pocket of jeans and put them on and went into the room, kneeling in front of the long line of evidence bags Nick and Catherine had placed on a cleared square of carpet. "God-damn it."

"Greg," Nick said, "where do you think this came from?"

"I can tell you what I think," Greg replied, looking at Nick over his shoulder. "But I'm afraid I'm wrong."

"Tell us what you think then," Catherine said.

"I think," Greg wrinkled his brow, "that Cole gave him this shit. He's the only one who's capable."

"Cole? The bald one?" 

"Yes. His full name is Coltrane Carter," Greg said slowly. "I can give you the names of the other peanuts, too."

"Great, great," Nick gave a broad smile and pulled a small pad and pen from his vest. "Hit me, Greg."

"Well besides Coltrane Carter," Greg said, "there's Daniel Friedman, also known as Zip; Marcus Orasmyn, who goes by Freak and then the aptly named Evan Baker."

"Got it," Nick scribbled furiously. "Thanks. This should help. Zip, or rather, Daniel had said earlier that he'd give us their real names…but he couldn't remember them."

"Mason, Cole, Dan, Marcus and Evan have been tight since junior high," Greg said. "They were together a lot."

"What do you think about Mason possibly in the drug dealing game?"

"Drug dealing?" Greg gave an expression that made him look as if he's bitten into a rotten walnut. "What would give you that idea?" 

"_I_ suggested it," came a fourth voice. 

Greg whirled around. "Meinka? What made you think that?"

"Because Mason never worked," said Meinka. She was standing just outside the door, still topless in her overalls, but her hair was now piled on top of her head in a bun/beehive hybrid. Her peace sign earrings shone in the dimness of the corridor. "Sure he went, but who knows how often? He _never_ gave us a check, Greg, only _cash_ and we _both_ know Steve Markham would _never_ pay under the table. He must have been doing something else!"

"But _drug dealing_?"

"What else did he know? What else could he do? _He could not even clean his room like a normal human being!_ Wake up, Greg, welcome to reality!"

Greg's face froze in anger. His shoulders tensed and so did Catherine. She would be ready to pounce if he should act violent toward his girlfriend. Instead, Greg gave Meinka a nasty glare and said, "Go back up to the studio, Meinka."

Angrily, Meinka crossed her arms across her bosom. "I'm not going anywhere. This is _my_ house too, Greg. I pay half the bills; I eat, sleep and live here and I have as much as right as you to know what's going on within it."

"Just what are you implying?"

Catherine cleared her throat and the squabbling couple looked at her. "Just keep in mind," she said, "neither of you will know anything until CSI Stokes and I know, and right now, we haven't a clue." 

"So cool your jets," Nick added as an afterthought.

Greg sighed, hung his head and mumbled an apology and then something about calling his mother. He stormed out of the room, even pushing Meinka aside to get away. Then they heard the front door open and then slam closed.

After a few moments of silence, Meinka stepped out of the shadowy corridor. "Sorry about that," she said. "He's been in a really bad way, and—"

"It's okay," Nick assured her.

"He's probably going to take out his anger on a helpless slab of clay. He needs to relax. You know, up till this point, I think Greg believed his little brother could do no wrong. He hates hearing the truth. I guess you could say his glasses are rose-colored." She stepped further into Mason's bedroom and looked around. "It looks halfway decent in here. I can't remember the last time I saw the carpet," she said. "What are you going to do with all the…you know, the pipes and stuff?" 

"Well, they're evidence," he said. "They're going back to CSI with us." 

"Good," Meinka replied, putting her hands in the pockets of her overalls. "Just as long as they never come back into the house again."

"Nope. You won't be seeing these babies for a long time." 

Meinka gave a hearty nod. "Great. Because we don't need anything like that here anymore. Hopefully with Mason gone, his friends will disappear as well."

"Don't blame you for wanting that," Catherine said. 

"And I meant what I said about Mason, you know, drug dealing," she continued. "I wouldn't lie about something like that. I have no reason to. I'll readily admit that I didn't like Mason but I would never—"

"It's okay Meinka," Catherine assured the young woman. "We don't doubt it."

Meinka pressed her lips together and then her eyes darted around the room. "If I were you," she said softly. "I'd unzip the mattress."

"'Unzip the mattress'?" repeated the CSI's in chorus. 

Instead of answering, Meinka just left the room. They waited for the sound of the front door to close for them to speak again. Catherine turned to Nick,

"Did she just say—"

"Unzip the mattress," Nick nodded. "Yeah. She did."

"Shall we?"

"We shall."

Nick and Catherine had, only ten minutes before Greg Ziegler appeared, dragged Mason's mattress into the hallway and until now it had held no particular interest in it—it had been only the box spring thus far.

"So we should look for some kind of zipper?" Nick asked. "She did use the phrase 'unzip'."

"I guess so," Catherine said. "Help me turn this upright."

They grabbed the side handles of the twin-sized mattress and turned it vertical. With flashlights they looked over the mattress, searching for a glint of a zipper. 

"Found it," Nick announced. "Down here."

Catherine stood at the foot of the mattress, behind Nick, to see what he saw. The "zipper" looked as if it was not meant to be there. It looked as if someone had bought a zipper attachment at a craft store and stitched it on. However, the workmanship was poor and it was shoddily sewn.

"Now, I'm no Martha Stewart, but even _I_ can sew a straight line," Catherine said. "That's got to be the worst sewing job I've ever seen. See how the stitches are big and crooked?"

"I can do worse," Nick shrugged. "Is that…blood?"

Catherine leaned in, her flashlight shining on the small brownish-red stains surrounding parts of the zipper, "Someone must've poked himself with the needle." 

"Or herself."

"No. It must be a he. Meinka doesn't look like the sort of girl who would stab herself with a needle."

"Well, there's only one way to find out. Hand me a swab?"

Catherine went to her field kit just outside the doorway and handed Nick a swab and an envelope. When he was done, he stood, turned to her and said, "Ms. Willows, would you like to do the honors?"

"I'd be _honored_ to do the honors," Catherine fluttered her eyelashes in mock flirtation and reached over. She grasped the zipper pull and tugged. It opened easily once she got it going. When it was done, nothing magically fell out, as she was hoping. She was not ready to stick her hand in there.

"Well, what's the big deal?" Nick put his hands on his hips.

"I have a feeling that I'd rather put my hand in the mouth of a komodo dragon."

"Want me to take care of it?"

"No," Catherine replied, quickly. "Just…gimme a sec."

Catherine pulled her glove as high as it would go without it tearing and, tongue between her teeth, stuck her hand into the gap. She felt around for a few seconds, not really sure what she was looking for, until she felt…something. Her facial expression must have changed dramatically because Nick eagerly asked what she'd found.

"I don't know yet," she answered. "Wait…got it!" 

She grabbed hold of what felt like plastic wrap, or a plastic bag, and withdrew it. What she extracted was not one, but two jumbo-sized bags of marijuana. 

"Well, we'd spent nearly four hours searching the bedroom of a pothead and we didn't find any pot. _Voila_," Catherine added sarcastically. "Catch, Nicky."

She tossed the bags to him and he caught them like a baseball. His nose crinkled.

"Phew. You can smell this stuff through the bag!" Nick held out both bags. "These are _gallon_-sized! Do you know how much this stuff would go on the streets?"

"Well, whatever the amount," Catherine sighed as she handed Nick an evidence bag, "It cost Mason Ziegler his life."


	19. The Feeling

Grissom took Chloe to his apartment after they'd finished lunch. 

"Don't leave, just stay here. Do anything but answer the phone or make any calls. Keep the volume of the television or any music you play low. When it gets dark, turn on some of the table lamps but none of the overhead lighting. No one can know you are here," he warned her. 

"I can't call anyone?" Chloe asked, cocking her head. Shane peered around the apartment, holding fast to the leg of Chloe's jeans. "Or even turn on lights?"

"No. I can't explain why, just don't. Please, Chloe, for your safety and Shane's, just don't," Grissom said, more harsh than he intended. "I have to get back to the station, so if you follow the rules…you'll be okay."

"Okay," replied Chloe. She put her bags down on the couch. 

"I'll be home as soon as I can. Just make yourself comfortable."

"I'll try."

As he turned to the front door, getting ready to leave, he reminded her one last time: "Remember. You're not here."

As Grissom drove back to CSI, he got a call on his cell. It was Catherine.

"We're done at Mason Ziegler's, finally," she said tiredly. "Where were you? I've been trying to reach you for about an hour."

"Oh," Grissom said, feeling embarrassed. "I must have forgotten to turn it on after my break." 

"_You_ took a _break_?"

"I got hungry."

"Who were you with?" 

"I'm not on trial, Catherine. I'm your boss, I ask the questions. Tell me about Mason Ziegler's."

"We found two gallon-sized bags of marijuana in Mason's mattress, so we're bringing in the whole thing so we can slice and dice it and see if we can find anything else in there. We also found drug paraphernalia up the wah-zoo—pipes and bongs."

"Anything else?"

"Nope. Just garbage. It wasn't only his appearance that was grungy. The kid was wallowing in trash. We also discovered the origin of the clay beneath Mason's fingernails. Turns out his brother Greg—with whom he lives—is a part time sculptor. His brother and his girlfriend Meinka let him do some work in their studio. Apparently he was an extremely talented artisan."

"Really?" 

"Well, Meinka claimed he did his best work when he was high. She also claimed that she had speculations he was dealing drugs to make rent."

"Dealing drugs? That might give us some kind of motive."

"Well, here's hoping. By the way, I got a call from Las Vegas Medical a little while ago. Adrian Lowe and Marquita Dali are ready to talk. Wanna get on it for tonight?"

"Tonight?" Grissom pursed his lips. He thought of Chloe and his promise to her. But this was important. "Sure. Let's go."

Warrick Brown had no clue what he was looking for. He'd been staring at the surveillance tape for hours—or what seemed like hours. Just as he was about to get up for a bathroom break, Grissom entered.

"Hey," Warrick forced a small smile. "What's up?"

"We have a suspect," Grissom said. "I'd like you to keep an eye out for her."

"Her?" 

"Chloe Haydn," replied Grissom, almost bitterly. He handed Warrick the printout of Chloe's police file with the photograph. 

Warrick took the picture warily and stared at it, "As in, Chloe Haydn, your niece?" 

"Yeah, yeah, I know. But listen, that doesn't matter anymore."

"What makes her a suspect?"

"The fact that her fingerprints were the only ones on the gun that was found at the Stop-n-Go. Once you find her on the tape, I'd like you and Brass to go there tomorrow morning."

"Tomorrow? Why not tonight?" 

"Because I have a feeling Nick and Catherine are going to be bringing back a lot from the Ziegler house. Give them a hand. I can't go myself, obviously. Plus Catherine and I need to go to Las Vegas Medical. We got a call about our witnesses. You can help Nick process the things from Mason Ziegler's house."

"What about Sara?"

"She's working Trace. Plus she knows Chloe. It wouldn't be fair in asking her to interview Chloe. You're neutral ground." Grissom wanted to postpone Chloe's interrogation for as long as possible. 

"That's me," Warrick sighed. He taped the picture of Chloe next to the television screen he was watching and sat back. He hit pause on the VCR remote. "I'm gonna get me something to eat. Popcorn or something. Want anything?" 

"No, thanks." 

Warrick left the room just as Catherine was entering. "Hey Warrick, Nick's out back. He needs your help dragging in a mattress."

"A mattress?"

"Evidence," was all Catherine had to say to get Warrick out the door. Once he was gone, Catherine leaned against the doorway, her arms crossed over her chest. "So, Gil. You gonna tell me what's wrong or are you gonna pout for the rest of this case?"

"Huh?" Grissom gave Catherine his infamous Look.

"When we came back from the hospital? Your hissy fit?"

"That was nothing."

"For you? That wasn't nothing, Gil. It was far from nothing. Come on, I thought we were buddies. What's wrong?"

"I…" Grissom took a deep breath. He exhaled slowly. Then he shrugged, shook his head and said, "I'm sorry, Catherine. I can't do that."

"Well, can you at least get your act together so we can get to Las Vegas Medical? They're being nice and waiving the visitation rights for us."

"Yeah," Grissom nodded. "Yeah, I'll be right there." 

Catherine bobbed her head just once. "Okay." She gave him another moment's stare and then left.

Once Grissom was alone again, he touched Chloe's picture with his forefinger and ran the tip along her jaw line. He had never felt like this before, not since he had moved out of his mother's house. It was a warm family feeling. Sara had said this would come in time.

"She may seem strange now, Gris," she'd said, "but give it a few days. You'll be cautious, of course, because you're Gil Grissom. But just watch. When you're with family, it feels like stepping into the shower and letting warm water run down your body or snuggling under a fleece blanket. You'll know it what it hits you."

Grissom knew he was falling in love with his niece, though he didn't want to admit it. He wanted to become closer to her and Shane, especially in this time of turmoil. She could have him wrapped around her finger any given day now and he knew it. He was already planning to take her to Marina Del Rey to see his mother over the next weekend. If anyone would know Rose's baby, it would be Gabrielle Grissom.

"Gil?" Catherine popped her blonde head back into the room. "Come on. We have people waiting for us."

Grissom felt flushed. He just nodded. With a final glance at Chloe's picture, he left. He felt as if he had been burrowed beneath a fleece blanket. 


	20. The Tattoo

Catherine and Grissom drove in silence to Las Vegas Medical, again without the radio, which irritated Catherine. Though she of course loved Lindsey, having an eleven year old daughter around was stressful and she enjoyed solace as much as Grissom did, but even she once and awhile longed for music in the car. Catherine kept her eyes on the road, trying to stay focused and Grissom lazily stared at the window, watching the world roll by. 

Once they got to the hospital and parked, Catherine tried to square with him. She leaned her elbows on the steering wheel. 

"Look, Gil. You could cut the fog of depression around you with a knife and it's really starting to irk me," she began. He stared at her with a look that told a story of shock, surprise and confusion. "You gotta tell me what's wrong. We're friends, or I like to think we are. If you don't start talking, whatever's bothering you is going to eat you up from the inside out."

Grissom just sighed and put his glasses on. "We _are_ friends, Catherine. Unfortunately, friend is not a synonym for psychiatrist."

He left the car and Catherine was pissed. Again.

They entered Las Vegas Medical and were greeted by a clean-cut doctor with glasses to bog for his face and a broad smile. Catherine seemed to know him and vice-versa.

"Welcome back," he said.

"Hello, Dr. Gold," Catherine smiled.

"Hello, Ms. Willows," the doctor greeted. He took off his glasses as if he just realized he was wearing them. "Is this a colleague of yours?"

"My boss, actually. Gil Grissom, this is Dr. Eli Gold," Catherine said. "He's Marquita Dali's doctor."

"Hello," Grissom said. 

"You're here for Adrian Lowe, correct?" Dr. Gold asked him.

"I suppose so. Are we splitting up, Cath?"

"Sure. We'll get done faster," Catherine said. "I've had a long day. I want to go home."

"That makes two of us," Dr. Gold smiled smoothly. "Marquita's been wanting to see you, Ms. Willows. She seems greatly appreciative of you. And Mr. Grissom, I'll take you to Adrian Lowe's room. He's been informed of his disability as of late last night. We can't say he's come to terms—that will take weeks, months, maybe years. However, during his stay at this hospital, he'll be seeing a psychiatrist."

Grissom shot Catherine a Look. She just rolled her eyes at him.

"So. Shall we?" Dr. Gold glanced at the two CSI's. "Marquita and Adrian are on the recovery floor, only six rooms away from each other."

"Are they aware of each other yet?" Catherine asked.

"Not yet. Should they be?" 

"No," Grissom said quickly. "It's better they be kept separate until after we've taken their statements." 

"Okay," Dr. Gold said, uncertain. "I'll make sure that the nurses know that."

Dr. Gold chatted up Catherine as he led her and Grissom up to the fifth floor of the recovery ward. Grissom didn't try to tune them out—it happened voluntarily. 

All Grissom was really thinking about was Adrian. Adrian and Nicolette and what was said or done, what wasn't said or done and what should have been said or done. It killed him. He was positive that Adrian was his son. Nicolette had practically admitted that. And he was about to see his son for the first time, ever.

Adrian was in room twenty-seven. Six doors down, in room thirty-three, was Marquita Dali. Dr. Gold and Catherine paused beside Adrian's door, speaking sotto voce,

"Here you go," Dr. Gold said. "Just remember one thing, Mr. Grissom? Be gentle with Adrian. His adjustment period has been and will be difficult."

"I understand," Grissom said.

"You know where to find me," Catherine said. 

Grissom merely nodded and waited until Dr. Gold and Catherine had entered Marquita Dali's room. He then knocked softly on the door of Adrian's private hospital room, which was closed. 

"Come in," came a suspiciously optimistic voice.

Grissom entered and saw Adrian in his bed, with a book with a faded cover in front of his face. He could clearly see the title: _Winesburg, Ohio_ by Sherwood Anderson. "Adrian de L'eau?" he inquired.

Adrian looked up from his book and grimaced at the sound of the French surname. "Yeah, sure. Come on in. What can I do for you?"

"Yes, you can. My name is Gil Grissom, I'm a forensic scientist with the Las Vegas Police Department?"

"That's cool. You lost, man?"

Grissom gave a small chuckle. "Hardly. I actually need to ask you some questions about the night you were shot."

Adrian's eyes widened. "Oh. Yeah. Sure, come on in, guy. _Entre_, _s'il vous plaît._" He dog-eared his book and placed on his bedside table. 

Grissom entered the room and pulled up a chair. When he was close, he saw that Adrian looked a lot like him: same eyes, nose and mouth. His hair was either blond or brown, depending on the light, with hints of red here and there. "Your accent is not as heavy as your mother's, I've noticed."

"You met my mom?" he cocked his head to the side and Grissom's heart jumped—that was _his_ look.

"Briefly," Grissom lied. "But your accent—"

"My accent?" Adrian asked. "_That's_ a new one. Most people can't tell. Well, I was born in France; I live in a dominantly French household and have all my life. Even when we moved to Palo Alto, we spoke French at home, so I guess it rubbed off on me." He pressed a button on his bedside bumper to make the head of his bed rise so he was in somewhat of a sitting position. "Sorry, I'm going off on a tangent. What is it you wanted to ask me, Mister…?"

"Grissom. Well, as you know, there was a robbery at the Stop-n-Go. Tell me everything you can about that night."

"Not much, Mr. Grissom, not much. It's all kind of in a daze."

"Do your best, if you could, please."

"I couldn't sleep," Adrian began slowly. "And I was thirsty. I know I could have called room service, but I was restless, you know? Had to get out. So I went to the first place I came across—the Stop-n-Go. After wandering around the store like a homeless person for about twenty minutes, I picked up some milk and some Advil and went to the checkout counter.

"Well, the space cadet behind the counter gave me the wrong change and I _tried_ to argue with him about it but he _insisted_ that I gave him ten and not twenty. In the midst of this argument, a guy dressed all in black like he was some guy from _The Matrix _stormed in. This guy took the cake—I swear he must have thought he was Neo. I would have laughed if he wasn't so serious about it. Black slacks, turtleneck, sneakers, a long black trench coat, black reflective sunglasses and a black gun pointed right at the cashier. I was scared shitless, lemme tell ya. Pardon my language."

"Pardoned."

"Well, he pushed in front of me to aim at the cashier so I backed away slowly. Neo and the space cadet began to argue about something."

"What were they arguing about?"

"I don't remember. Anyway, I was getting fed up waiting for Neo to finish up so I turned to leave. I grabbed my bag off the counter, told the space cadet where to stick it and wham, first shot grazed me on the hip. Left a nasty cut, it had to be stitched up. Wanna see?"

"Maybe later. What else do you remember?"

Adrian paused. "I remember screaming like a little girl, that's for damn sure. I don't know if you've ever been shot, Mr. Grissom, but it hurts like a…well, I'm not gonna say because I kiss my mother with this mouth."

Grissom chortled.

"I dropped my bag, fell to my knees, grabbing my side. I heard another shot go off, and I figured the space cadet just got blown back into the cosmos. Then just as I decided, 'hey, this isn't so bad', the second and third bullets go into my back…and that's when I blacked out."

"You don't remember hearing anything while you were blacked out?"

"Nope. I was dead to the world as far as I was concerned. I did see some pretty interesting colors when I came to."

Grissom was quiet for a very long time. He crossed his legs and pursed his lips, wondering what he could say next. He had to restrain himself from thinking that this was his son.

"Mr. Grissom?" Adrian said. "Have you ever known what it's like to have something all your life, something you took for granted and then suddenly loose it in one instant?"

Startled but unflustered by the question, Grissom nodded. "Yes, as a matter of fact I do."

"Were you devastated?" 

"Very much so."

"Did you learn to adapt?"

Grissom sighed. "I can't tell you that."

"Why?" 

"Because what I lost…I had restored. Not very long ago I was faced with the demise of my hearing and over the past summer I had an operation to retard the process."

"But…you will, eventually, completely loose your hearing?"

"In time, yes. Not tomorrow."

"Frightening, isn't it?" Adrian said stiffly. 

"Very. When I discovered I was loosing my hearing, the only thing I could think of was, 'how am I going to do my job?'. I didn't think of anything else. I didn't even consider that I'd never hear the voices of people I love, that I'd never be able to hear music I enjoy."

"You know, when they told me I would never be able to walk again, all I could think was, 'God…I love soccer'. I had _just_ realized how much I love it. At the same time, I realized that I'd never be able to play again. I won't be able to kick a ball. I won't be able to run a goal. I didn't think about not dancing or not taking pleasure in walking along the beach, holding hands with my girlfriend or wife. I thought about _soccer_." Adrian lifted his arm and placed it over his eyes. Grissom noticed some writing on the outside of his forearm. It was a tattoo.

"Interesting tattoo you have there," Grissom said.

Adrian lifted his arm off his face and held both of them out, looking down. _Moriri est Vivere_ was written on the right;_ Vivere est Moriri_ was written on the left—both in an ornate script. "Yeah. An eighteenth birthday present I bought myself."

"'Dying to Live, Living to Die'?" Grissom cocked his head. 

"Ah. A fellow Latin scholar," Adrian commented.

"_Certe_," Grissom replied, the Latin word for _yes_. "Latinam Honoris Societatem, tenth, eleventh and twelfth grade. Just one question: why would you write something like that on your body?"

"Don't like tattoos, Mr. Grissom?"

"It depends. Tattoos are very helpful when it comes to finding perps, but otherwise," Grissom shrugged. "I'm not one to judge on how someone treats their body."

"It's a common form of artistic expression," Adrian explained, but Grissom had heard it all before, one way or another. 

"I could never fathom being stuck with needles for the sake of art."

"Beauty is pain, Mr. Grissom. A tattoo can tell you a lot about someone. A woman's name on a man's body can denote a long-lost love and vice-versa. A cross can show spirituality. A phrase such as mine can show state of mind or feeling. Tattoos tell the untold story."

"So does forensics."

"You say toe-may-toe, I say toe-mah-toe." Adrian lifted the sleeve of his hospital gown and revealed another tattoo just before his shoulder joint of a baroque sun with some French script bordering it. "This one is for my mother. It says, '_vous êtes mon soleil_'."

"'You are my sunshine'?" Grissom asked, recognizing the phrase. 

"It's her favorite lullaby," Adrian said. "She used to sing it to me and my sisters., whom I have on my other shoulder."

Grissom, out of curiosity, went around to the other side to view Adrian's tribute to his sisters. Red roses formed two interlocking hearts, the left one read _Sylvie_ and the right one read _Fleur_.

"I have a tough time explaining that these are my sisters and not past girlfriends," Adrian joked lightly. 

"You really love them, huh?"

"We've been through a lot together. Are you married, Mr. Grissom?"

"No. I've never been married."

"If you ever do? Just do me a favor. Don't hit her."

Before Grissom could question him on that, Nicolette entered the room, a smile on her face and a bouquet of perky red roses. The twins, Sylvie and Fleur, were standing on either side of her and wasted no time in rushing into the room and bombarding their brother with kisses and hugs. Grissom could no longer tell them apart—their shirts had changed.

"Ooooh, Adrian," said one twin, in a purple shirt. "We miss you! Our hotel room is just so dull."

"Fleur and I could not sleep, we were thinking about you so much!" said the other, in a gray shirt. This one had to be Sylvie.

"So we played gin rummy all night," Fleur added.

"Girls, girls," Nicolette said, stepping into the room. "Get off the bed. Let Adrian rest." Her broad smile then cracked and broke like Humpty-Dumpty when she spotted Grissom sitting beside Adrian. "_Bonjour_, stranger," she greeted him briskly. "Can I help you?"

"No," Grissom said matter-of-factly, "actually, you can't. I've come to speak to Adrian."

"Mom," Adrian said, "this is—"

"I know who this is, _cher_."

"Oh. You've met?"

"In a way…yes."

In this chilling instant, Grissom realized that she now knew who he was. 


	21. The Stars

Grissom excused himself while Adrian visited with his mother and sisters. He stepped outside the hospital into the night air, inhaled and tasted Nevada. It him, it had a rare flavor—woody, nutty and cool. Like a fine wine, he tasted Nevada as a nightly ritual. He looked up at the night sky and for the first time he noticed how bright the stars were. Then he realized how long it had been since he studied it for hours. Then he realized why it had been so long: it was the color of Nicolette's eyes—a strange mixture of blue and violet, sparkly and mysterious.

Suddenly, he heard soft footsteps creep up behind him and then stop. He felt his heart race, expecting Nicolette to wrap her arms around him.

Instead he heard a small voice of sweetness pipe up, "Monsieur?"

Grissom turned and instead saw one of Nicolette's twins. "Hello. Sylvie, right?"

"No," the twin frowned. "Fleur."

"Oh," Grissom said, discomfited. "I'm sorry."

The twin broke into a smile. "I'm just kidding—I'm Sylvie. Good guess, monsieur."

Grissom laughed to himself. He _knew_ Sylvie had been the one in the gray shirt.

She tiptoed up to him, her hands clasped behind her back, as if concealing a surprise. She had a bashful smile on her face. "What are you looking at? Stars?"

Grissom ducked his head in embarrassment, like a child caught doing something wrong. Then he gave a short, brusque nod. 

Sylvie sidled up beside him and brushed a few hairs from her face. "Adrian was teaching Fleur and me the names of the stars, but he hasn't for awhile. Do you know their names, monsieur?" 

Grissom glanced down at Sylvie, who was looking right back up at him, face full expectancy. "Some," he admitted. 

"Will you teach me?"

Again, Grissom looked up at the sky, his eyes searching. He scratched his beard. "Well, see that row of three stars over there?"

"There?" Sylvie pointed.

"That's Orion's belt. And those two stars above it, they connect to make Orion."

"_Oui_, I see it," Sylvie replied. "His arms are up over his head, aren't they? Is he holding anything?"

"A bow and arrow."

"Is he killing something?" she asked, scared.

"Not yet," Grissom pointed up again. "He's standing by the river Eridanus and with him are his hunting dogs, the constellations Canis Major and Canis Minor, also known as big dog and little dog. They're hunting Lepus and Taurus, the rabbit and the bull."

"It sounds like a story."

"It is a story," Grissom replied, like talking to a student. "According to Greek mythology, Orion died when he stepped on a scorpion, the constellation Scorpius. The gods felt sorry for him, so they put him and his dogs in the sky as constellations. They also put all of the animals he hunted up there near him. Scorpius, however, was placed on the opposite side of the sky so Orion would never be hurt by it again."

As he stood looking up at the sky, Grissom lost himself up there. He felt weightless, bodiless and lightheaded, as if he himself were floating among the stars. Then he felt a warmth in his right hand. He looked down.

Sylvie had entwined her fingers with his. They were holding hands.

Grissom's first reaction was to recoil, pull away from Sylvie and go back inside. But the way they were standing, something about how the moon reflected off Sylvie's face, making her seem so pure and innocent, and lighting her eyes like ceremonial candles and how she tilted her face upward toward the sky…it felt nice, just standing there, not talking. 

He tried to see it at the eleven-year-old girl's perspective—her older brother, her role model and savior, had been teetering between life and death for many hours and was now confined to a wheelchair for life; her father used to beat her and her sister; her mother was a nervous wreck. She was looking for, obviously, a strong male paradigm to replace those who could not be with her, to keep her safe and to teach her the names of the stars. 

"Where are his _pantalons_?" Sylvie spoke out of the blue.

"Excuse me?" Grissom raised an eyebrow. "Who's pants?" He remembered a lot of French from when he was in his relationship with Nicolette.

Sylvie squeezed Grissom's hand. "Orion. He has a _ceinture_ but no _pantalons_," she gave a soft laugh. "Where are they?" 

"That's—"

"He should have them or he will get sick. His mother will be mad for him running around _nudité_."

"I—"

"I mean, isn't he cold?" Sylvie frowned. 

Grissom tightened his lips, trying not to laugh. "I suppose so," was all he could say.

"Hm," Sylvie looked up at the sky again, searching for, possibly, Orion's pants. She began to hum the French lullaby she and her sister had been singing earlier. She was still gripping Grissom's hand and he was beginning to feel uncomfortable. She spoke again, "Monsieur? You 'talk' to dead people, right?"

"In a manner of speaking," Grissom replied. 

"What do they tell you? Do they ever tell you what happens when you…you know, give up the ghost?"

"Give up the ghost? No. They tell me stories." 

"What kind of stories?"

Grissom glanced quickly at her inquisitive face, soft and blue in the moonlight. "About how they died."

"When I die," Sylvie announced, "I want to return as the buckle of Orion's belt."

"Interesting choice."

"What about you, monsieur?" 

"I'd like to be a cockroach."

A second set of footsteps approached, and Sylvie let go of Grissom's hand quickly, like she had touched something dirty, and clasped her hands behind her back like a police academy cadet.

"Sylvie?" Nicolette's voice sounded. "Are you bothering this nice man again?"

"No, Mamma," Sylvie said innocently.

"I was worried," Nicolette came up behind Sylvie and put her hands on Sylvie's shoulders. "You shouldn't wander, _cher_."

"_Je suis désolé, _Mamma," Sylvie apologized, looking up at her mother.

"_C'est bien, cher_," Nicolette assured her daughter, stroking her face with one hand. "Go inside, _s'il vous plaît_, Sylvie. Fleur is looking for you."

"Yes, Mamma," Sylvie said quietly, almost in a whisper. She very quickly, discreetly, stroked Grissom's hand with her forefinger before leaving. Grissom felt a chill run up his arm with the gentle silky gesture and out of the corner of his peripheral vision, saw the eleven-year-old girl leave.

Once they were alone, Grissom and Nicolette were quiet. He cleared his throat and glanced at her.

"She's quite a girl, Miss de L'eau," Grissom said.

"Don't I know it," was her plain response. Nicolette flipped her hair back. "You can cut the crap now, Gil."

Grissom was taken aback. "Excuse me?"

Nicolette faced him, her face and eyes firm, "I've known who you were the moment you gave me the handkerchief last night, you _menteur_. You _lied_ to me while I waited for my son to come out of surgery."

"_Our_ son," Grissom corrected firmly, coolly. "Don't you mean _our_ son, Nicolette?"

"_Cassez-vous_," she spat at him. 

"Don't give me that," Grissom faced her, angrily. He clenched his fists inside his pockets to keep himself from losing his head.

"I can say whatever I want."

"So can I. You owe me five hundred dollars." Grissom surprised himself. He never complained or spoke of money. Never. Until this point, he didn't care about what had happened to the five hundred dollars he'd left for her twenty years ago. Now, he was so infuriated it was all he could think of.

"I owe you nothing," Nicolette crossed her arms over her chest defiantly. 

"Except an apology."

"For what?"

"You put me through hell, Nicolette," Grissom replied angrily. "You rejected me and said you wanted to abort our child!"

"I did want to!" Nicolette shouted. "I almost did!"

"So what happened?"

"When I got to the clinic…I lost my nerve. So I didn't do it. I fled."

"You fled. And you didn't call me? Didn't even _attempt_ to contact me and let me know what was going on? Just upped and went back to Canada?"

"I thought you would be angry," Nicolette's eyes dropped.

"What, angrier than I am now? That's bullshit, Nicolette, and you know it. What would happen if we never met tonight? Would I have gone a lifetime without knowing I had a son?"

"No. No, no…I—" 

"And I loved how you referred to our five-year relationship as a 'brief affair'. Was that all it was to you?" Grissom glared at his former love. 

"That's what it felt like."

"Why?" Grissom dropped his voice dramatically. "Just why, Nicolette? Why did you hide this from me?" he gestured towards the hospital. "Were you not listening that day? Didn't you hear what I was saying?"

"I heard," Nicolette sniffed back tears. "But like I said back then, I didn't believe you."

"So you would have rather been with Robert Meullier as opposed to me?"

Nicolette slapped Grissom across the face. "_Fils d'une chienne_!"

Grissom did not move, did not react to Nicolette's violent action, just touched his cheek once, to make sure his lip wasn't bleeding or anything. He forgot how hard she could hit. "I deserve that. That was insensitive of me," was all he said, in a cool, calm and even voice, his signature in taxing events.

"I _suffered_, _damnez-le_, God-damn it!" Nicolette shrilled. "You have no idea what I suffered, Gil. _Mon Dieu_, I suffered like a starving dog tethered to a pole! I suffered for eight miserable years! My children suffered! They were denied the love they deserved by a cruel man I was not allowed to leave!" Nicolette stomped and paced. "You know what? Screw it all. As soon as _my _son is well enough, I am taking _him_ and _my_ daughters back to Quebec! Not even Palo Alto, fuck America! I need to go _home_."

"You can't do that."

"Fuck off, yes I can!"

"No, Nicolette. You can't," Grissom approached her.

"Touch me and I'll scream rape!" she threatened.

Grissom put his hands up in front of him. "You wouldn't do that."

"Like hell I will. Watch me."

"If you take Adrian back to Canada, you can be arrested for tampering with an investigation." 

"Why?"

"Someone tried to kill him tonight, Nicolette," Grissom reminded her firmly. "He can help us find out who did it." 

"I don't want to put him through anything like that."

"Too bad. He's the only survivor, he most likely saw who did it, or else got a good look." Grissom didn't mention Marquita Dali, Pancha Nichols's niece, who had been knifed through the hand by the said criminal.

"I won't let you talk to _my son_ again!" Nicolette hissed.

"Then I'll get someone else to talk to him. Either way, he _will_ be a part of this investigation, no matter what you call him—yours, mine, ours—I don't really care. What I _do_ care about is catching whoever did this," Grissom's hand went to his pocket, reaching for his cellphone. Nicolette flinched when she saw his gun in the holster. "I'm calling in CSI Nick Stokes to come talk to Adrian. You respect him and he'll respect you."

"You're one to talk about respect."

Grissom shook his head in disgust and dialed Nick's cell. 

"Stokes."

"Nicky, I'll need you to come down to Las Vegas Medical come talk to Adrian Lowe about the robbery."

"I thought you were down there already?"

Grissom turned his back on Nicolette and lied as quickly as possible. "I need to talk to Al Robbins and then I have some stuff to give Sara and Warrick. Catherine will be with Marquita Dali and you're the free man."

Nick groaned and sighed. "I'll be there."

"Adrian's mother Nicolette will meet you at the entrance," Grissom added, glaring at Nicolette over his shoulder as he said this. "She'll take you to his room."

"Gotcha."

When Grissom hung up, Nicolette had a few more words.

"If that man should damage him in any way, I will have your ass, Gil."

"His name is Nick Stokes. Again, you will treat him with respect. I'll not let your disdain for me get in the way of this investigation," Grissom said firmly. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to the lab."


	22. The Wolves

"Marquita," Dr. Gold said, knocking on the door. "There's someone here to see you."

"Who?" came a stubborn-voiced answer. "Tell them to go away."

"Marquita, it's Catherine," Catherine replied, making her voice gentle like she had the night she mollycoddled Marquita and her hand.

"_Venido adentro_," said Marquita after a pause, her tone a little brighter. 

Catherine stepped into the room and saw Marquita, sitting up in bed, a magazine open on her lap and wearing a worn-out Lisa Frank T-shirt depicting prancing unicorns. Her hand was heavily bandaged and wrapped in a cast, each finger separated into an individual padded compartment. 

"Catherine," Marquita said, excitedly. "I was hoping you would come to see me!" 

"Well, I'm happy you're excited," Catherine smiled. She approached Marquita and hugged the girl, who hugged back. Dr. Gold smiled to himself and quietly left the room to make his rounds. "Unfortunately, I'm not here to visit."

Marquita's face fell. "_Ay_."

Catherine pulled up a chair and sat down. "Don't worry. It's nothing right now. I just need to know—from your point of view—what happened two nights ago at Stop-n-Go."

"It was _two_ nights ago?"

"Yeah."

"Wow…" Marquita looked down at her hand. "At least I kept my hand."

"At least." 

"But my aunt is gone." A rogue tear escaped from the corner of her eye. "I'm not religious, Catherine, but I gotta tell ya—I really do believe you are an angel, sent by God to save me. You really did save me. I probably would have bled to death if you hadn't opened the door and found me."

Catherine smiled, "If you didn't make all that noise in the closet, I wouldn't have found you. You were very brave."

Marquita put her chin to her chest and smiled a little bit, her dark hair falling over her eyes. Tiny gold cross earrings hung from her lobes. 

"Can you tell me about the robbery now, honey?" Catherine pulled a small notebook from the back pocket of her jeans and a pen from behind her ear.

"I have to?"

"Yeah," Catherine said, gently. "If we wanna catch who killed your aunt, you're gonna have to say something. Start off easy. Your mother says she didn't know you went with your aunt. Why did you go?"

"I needed something."

"What? You can tell me, Marquita, we're both girls."

"I don't want to. It doesn't matter anyway. It doesn't matter," Marquita repeated in a whisper. "Um, I heard Aunt Pancha getting up and well, I'm a light sleeper so I got out of bed and asked her where she was going. She said my mother wanted some mild painkillers and I asked to go with her. She didn't ask why—Aunt Pancha never asks why, that's what I love…_loved_ about her.

"We got to the Stop-n-Go, I got my stuff, Pancha got hers and we were just about to go pay when this…this _vato_ comes in. All in black. Big sunglasses on his face. They were the kind where you can't see the eyes behind them?"

"Reflective?" 

"Yeah, reflective. He looked sort of young. Twenty maybe. came in all mad and shit, like he was gotta bust a cap…and he did, right into the head of the guy behind the counter."

"Okay. Good, Marquita, keep going," Catherine scribed furiously. 

"I screamed. I couldn't help it. I watched in horror as he fired more shots into someone else. A young guy, maybe a little older than my brother Diego, he was shot a few times too. I'd never seen anyone shot before, even in my little _barrio_. My aunt Pancha screamed too. Then the _vato, _that _pedazo de mierde_ turned around and fired at her. There was nothing I could do. It all happened so fast. All I could do was scream and scream. Then…he came towards me. I don't know where I got my strength from, Catherine, but I charged at him. I just…went for him you know?"

Catherine frowned. "That was pretty dangerous."

"I didn't care. I've done worse stuff," Marquita said quickly, then she regretted it. But she continued anyway, "I charged at him with all the adrenaline that had built up and he whipped out the knife. He came towards me…and I had my arms up like I was going to hit him, yelling like crazy, in Spanish, in English, every curse word and dirty name I could think of…and before I knew it we were face to face and…he knifed me. Stabbed. Whatever you want to call it." With her free hand, Marquita tucked her hair behind her ear and drummed her fingers on her knee for a few seconds before putting them to her voluptuous lips and biting her nails. "You wouldn't happen to have a cigarette, would you?"

"No, I don't smoke," Catherine said, not looking up from her notepad. "I'm a scientist, Marquita. I know what cigarettes do to a woman's body. So the assailant just…" Catherine made gestures with her hands "…stabbed you through the hand and walked out?"

"Pretty much. I know it sounds crazy."

"You were lucky. A seventeen year old versus a man with a gun. He could have blown you back to kingdom come."

"I know that. Listen, I'm not as _ingenuo_ as you think I am. My mama, I love her, but she doesn't know _everything_ I do."

Catherine screwed up her mouth. Her mind flashed to Mason Ziegler. "Have you ever…experimented with drugs, Marquita?"

Marquita looked up, shocked. "Depends on what you mean by 'drugs'."

"Well, marijuana, for one."

"Sure, I've tried pot. Who hasn't? In my neighborhood, it's nothing unusual."

"Do you know anyone by the name of Mason Ziegler?" 

Knitting her brow, Marquita shook her head, "I don't think so. Doesn't sound like anyone from my neck of the woods, for sure."

Catherine continued, "He also went by the nickname of Mazz. Does that sound familiar?"

"Yeah. He's this kid…my brother used to hang with him. I never met him but I used to hear Diego talking to him on the phone all the time. Or at least mention him a lot."

"Well, Mason Ziegler…he was the clerk killed at the Stop-n-Go. The one behind the counter."

"¿_Verdad_? That's crazy!"

"Do you know anything else about Diego and Mazz?" Catherine leaned in, feeling like she was really getting to the meat of the situation. 

"No, not really. Diego was worse than I was, _verdad_. I've seen the crazy shit—sorry, stuff he used to do. He used to run with this gang called Los Malos Lobos Grandes."

"What's that?" Catherine, who didn't know much Spanish, asked.

"The Big Bad Wolves?" Marquita looked at Catherine with serious eyes. "They would pick one girl to be La Una Rojita, the Little Red One. Like Little Red Riding Hood? It was a sick game. Pick one girl from the area that they all knew, hunted her down and…" Marquita buried her face in her hand. "_Qué terrible sino_…"

"Marquita?" Catherine put a hand on the girl's shoulder. 

"They would…attack her," came a shuddery whisper. "Make her be their…slave. They would do it…at gunpoint, knifepoint."

"How do you know about this?" Catherine was horrified now. 

Marquita began to cry. Her shoulders rose and fell with sobs. Catherine became alarmed. 

"Marquita…honey, please…you have to tell me about this, we can get them to stop…stop crying, please…" in a motherly fashion, Catherine held Marquita and rocked her slowly, like she did with Lindsey. "It's okay…"

"Please, Catherine…I don't want to talk anymore tonight. Please. Don't make me talk anymore," Marquita sobbed. 

"It's okay," Catherine assured the girl. "It's okay."

"Find who did it, please," Marquita buried her face into Catherine's shoulder. "Please. Catch him…"

"I'm gonna do my best," Catherine promised.


	23. The Money

Grissom was only half-awake, surprised he had slept at all, when he felt a strange warmth against his legs. Someone was in bed with him…but who?

He was not startled when he sat up in bed and saw a lump in his sheets. It was not his nature to be jumpy. Instead, he lifted the blanket and saw his grandnephew Shane curled up and fast asleep, in LA Dodgers pajamas.

Grissom didn't have the heart to wake of move him, so he quietly kicked himself out of his own bed and went to make some coffee.

The Las Vegas horizon was gently being illuminated by a persistent sun, nudging the city out of its restless slumber. Chloe was still asleep in the couch, covered in a blue chenille throw blanket. She looked so comfortable and at peace that Grissom moved as quietly as a mouse on his way to the kitchen.

The hum of the coffee maker as it poured the steaming hot elixir into the pot woke her unintentionally. She stirred on the couch and opened her eyes, observing Grissom in the kitchen, as if she'd forgotten for a moment who he was and where she was. Then she casually threw the blanket off her body, sat up and stretched. She wore a gray and navy Yale University shirt and a pair of navy boxer shorts. 

"Good morning," she yawned.

"Morning," Grissom said. "Something of yours made their way into my bed. You might want to retrieve it."

Chloe got to her senses, looked around and then realized Shane was missing. She bolted off the couch and went the way of Grissom's bedroom. 

Grissom poured himself some coffee and sighed, wondering how long it would take to get used to Chloe and Shane before they had to go back to Arizona. 

As he began to go through his head all the things he had to do concerning the Stop-n-Go robbery that day, Chloe trudged back into the living room, Shane under her arm. He did not look happy. 

"Sorry," she apologized. "He usually crawls into bed with Walker and me late at night. He probably just got confused."

"Understandable," was Grissom's simple response. 

Chloe plopped Shane somewhat roughly onto the couch, upon which he curled up, screwed his eyes shut and covered his ears with his hands.

"He's just zoning," Chloe explained to Grissom, who had cocked his head in confusion. "It's the Shane George Jackson approach to the classic temper tantrum."

"He's a quiet kid, huh?"

"Well, I think he takes after his uncle," Chloe grinned as she leaned against the kitchen counter.

"Great-uncle," Grissom corrected with a small smile—all he could muster so early. "Who do you know that went to Yale?" he gestured at the shirt with his mug.

Chloe looked down at her shirt. "One of my best girl-friends back home, Siva Martin. She majored in journalism."

"Ah," Grissom nodded. He took a quick gulp of coffee and then pushed his mug aside. "Listen, I have to tell you something very important. Today—in a few hours, in fact—one of my CSI's will be coming to question you. Because, as of now, you are a suspect _and_ my niece, you must not let them know you are staying with me here. You're going have to go back to the Rhapsody."

Chloe's expression turned horrified. "No!"

"You have to. I'm doing this to help you," Grissom explained. "If they find out you're staying here, I can get thrown off the case and I won't be able to help you."

"Gil, I can't go back. Walker—"

"I'll go with you," Grissom promised. "I won't let him do anything to you." He opened his junk drawer and took out a legal pad and pen. He scribed a few numbers. "My beeper and cell. Call if you have an emergency and _only_ if it's an emergency, if it's something you can't handle on your own. Remember, I work with cops." He tore the sheet off the pad and handed it to his niece. "Get dressed and get your stuff together."

Hesitantly, Chloe took the paper and stared blankly at it as if she'd just made a lifelong contract with the devil. 

"Just don't take any crap," Grissom advised his niece as they walked down the Rhapsody's silk-laden corridors. He carried her suitcase and she carried her son.

"I haven't been taking his crap for six years, I'm not going to start now," Chloe said, looking down at Shane.

"Got your key?" 

"Yeah."

Chloe stood Shane on his own two feet and opened her duct tape purse. Her key ring, heavy with charms advertising obscure punk rock bands and crude humor, came out and Chloe searched for the correct key. When she found it and stuck it in the door, Grissom noticed it was slightly ajar. Chloe noticed it too. "Gil?" she whispered fearfully. "Shane, come hold Momma's hand…"

"Stay back," Grissom warned. It was now he wished he was one of those CSI's that insisted on carrying their guns constantly. He quickly threw the door open and stepped inside the room.

No one was there. No housekeeping, no room service…no Walker. 

"Hello?" Grissom called.

The room was in total disarray. Clothes, mainly Chloe's by the looks of it, were pulled from still-open drawers and onto the carpet, thrown akimbo. The beds were stripped of their sheets in anger and one of the mattresses was actually partially hanging off the bed frame. An empty shoebox was lying on its side near the bureau, spilling its contents like viscera.

"Chloe, you and Shane can come in now. It's okay."

"Are you sure?" Chloe asked timidly.

Grissom peered inside the bathroom. It was spotless. "Yes." When Chloe didn't enter, he went into the hallway and took her by the hand. "Just a word of caution—it looks like Walker had his own temper tantrum," he said as he led Chloe and Shane into the room.

When Chloe saw the chaos, her mouth dropped open. "Oh…God…Walker's things are gone…"

Grissom nodded. 

"How _could_ he? Where could he go?" Chloe sank onto one of the beds, dumbstruck. Shane crawled up to sit with her.

"You should check to make sure nothing's missing. Besides Walker's things, that is. If there is anything missing, you're gonna have to come down to the station with me and report it."

Chloe immediately went to the overturned shoebox. "My jewelry. If that bastard took any of my jewelry…"

Grissom knelt with her. The shoebox not only contained jewelry, but several photographs, a diary with a beaded cover and, for no particular reason, some dried rose petals. He began picking up her trinkets piece by piece, recognizing some of the jewelry. "Are any of these Rose's?"

"Um," Chloe looked at what was in her hands and in Grissom's. "Yes. These two necklaces, these three sets of earrings, and these two bracelets and this locket are hers. And this one is the ring my father gave her when they were married."

Grissom admired the elegant gold braided band that had been his little sister's wedding ring and picked up one of the bracelets. "I gave her this." It was a shiny wooden bangle, smooth like marble and a brilliant mixture of browns. "I'm glad you have it now."

"It's my favorite," Chloe said, stroking its velvetiness. "My father said she wore it every day."

"She did." He pressed the bracelet into her hand.

Chloe slid the bangle onto her wrist, scooped everything else up off the floor and put it back in the box. "I think everything is here."

"Good. That's taken care of."

"Wait," Chloe said. "Wait a second…" She went into the bathroom. 

Shane, feeling abandoned, slid off the bed and tugged at Grissom's jeans.

"Up," he demanded.

"He wants you to pick him up," Chloe explained from the bathroom.

"Up, please," Shane repeated. 

Grissom knelt and Shane wrapped his arms around Grissom's neck, who then scooped him up and trailed Chloe in the bathroom. She spied them into the mirror.

"You look very natural," she complimented.

"Well, I've held kids before," Grissom said in light defense. "It's just that…none were my own."

Chloe opened a bathroom cabinet beneath the sink and took out a box of tampons. When she opened it, Grissom felt like he should leave, but instead, she reached inside the box and withdrew a white envelope.

"What's that?"

"My special savings. Emergency money. About five hundred dollars. He could take all the money in my purse but as long as he doesn't get this…"

"Serves him right for not thinking like a woman," Grissom gave a wry smile.

"I'll bet it all that he was looking for this," Chloe hugged the envelope to her chest. Then she ruffled Shane's hair, who was comfortable in the groove of Grissom's arms.

"Okay, so Walker didn't take it. Good. Put it back in the box, put the box back into the cabinet. Straighten up the room, make it look like you've been here all night. Tell them everything you told me but _do not_ mention that you spent the night at my place. Please, Chloe, remember that."

"Yes," Chloe said as she replaced the envelope and then the box. "Gil, I'm worried…is this right?"

Grissom looked down at his grandnephew, then at his niece and exhaled slowly. "I hope so."


	24. The Questioning

Warrick knew the story of Chloe Haydn and had seen her face on video tape, but had never met her. He could see know how Grissom had been caught between a rock and a hard place by sending Warrick to interview Chloe. Grissom himself could not go—it would reek of nepotism. Sara knew Chloe, had met and interacted her so having to investigate her like this would not be fair to either party. Nick and Catherine already had a heavy workload with the path of Mason Ziegler, so Warrick was the odd man out.

Warrick was careful not to let Brass know about Chloe being Grissom's niece, but then again wasn't sure if he already knew. They drove to the Rhapsody Hotel in silence.

"Room twenty-two," Brass said as they entered the hotel. "She's here with her boyfriend and four-year-old son."

"I don't understand why she would feel the need to rob a convenience store," Warrick said, shaking his head.

"Well, no one's proved anything yet."

"Grissom and Catherine haven't said anything about what Adrian Lowe and Marquita Dali have said."

"I guess they want to get every side first, then see what's what," Brass shrugged.

"Maybe. I hope so. But Chloe's fingerprints were on the gun. She was at Stop-n-Go, I saw her on the video tape, I had it confirmed. There's a few shots of Chloe entering and then leaving the convenience store. She was wearing a sweatshirt and spandex bike shorts, how the hell could she have hidden a gun in there?"

"Maybe the gun wasn't hers. Did she shoot anyone?"

"Don't think so. She may be an accomplice. Hopefully we'll find GSR."

"Or," Brass raised an eyebrow, "the missing cash."

Warrick saw very little of Gil Grissom in Chloe Haydn when she answered the door of the hotel room. She was blonde, hazel-eyed and tiny, but shared Grissom's look of utter confusion, especially when she saw Warrick and Brass standing in the hall. She wore jeans with a rip at the knee and a shirt that read _United States of Whatever _written in what looked like magazine cutout letters. Her eyes were red, like she'd been crying.

"Chloe Haydn Jackson?" Brass inquired.

"No Jackson, just Haydn," Chloe correct politely.

"My apologies. I'm Captain Jim Brass from the Las Vegas Police Department."

"Hello, Captain."

"And this is Warrick Brown from Criminalistics."

"Hello, Mr. Brown."

"May we enter the room, Ms. Haydn?" Warrick asked.

"Yes, of course," Chloe stepped aside and let Brass and Warrick through.

Her son was sprawled on one of the beds in front of the television, surrounded by crayons, coloring books, toy cars and action figures. He looked almost nothing like his mother with dark brown hair and long features with big eyes.

"Who's here, Mommy?" he asked fearfully when he saw Warrick and Brass.

"They're people here to talk," Chloe said, going over to the boy. She stood him up on the bed. "Mr. Brown, Captain Brass, this is my son Shane."

Brass smiled and Warrick gave a small wave. Shane slid off the bed and approached Warrick, non-plussed.

"You don't have what he has," Shane protested to Warrick, pointing to Brass.

"That's right," Warrick knelt. "Because I'm not a policeman."

"Are you like my granduncle?" he asked excitedly. "Are you a scientist?"

"Huh?" Warrick's smile grew wider, pretending not to know who his granduncle was.

"Shane," Chloe whispered harshly, as if warning him, taking her son by the shoulder.

"It's okay," Warrick told her.

"I don't want him to bother you."

"He's not bothering me. I like kids."

"So are you a scientist?" Shane repeated.

"Yeah, I am. How'd you know that?"

"You're wearing a vest like my granduncle. Mommy says it's 'cause I'm…what'd you say, Mommy? A tissue?"

Warrick chuckled as Chloe mumbled, "_Astute_, honey."

Brass smiled broadly. Shane approached him next. "I like your stuff," he said, pointing at the accessories that festooned Brass: gun in holster, badge on lapel, walkie-talkie on belt.

"Thanks, little man," Brass chuckled.

"Can I see your badge?"

"Sure, kid," Brass unhooked his badge and held it in his hand to show to Shane.

"Can I touch it?"

"Knock yourself out."

Shane took the badge from Brass and examined it closely. "It doesn't look like mine at home, Mommy. Why can't mine be like this one?"

"Shane," Chloe said again, in a less harsh but still a reprimanding tone.

Warrick stood. "Ms. Haydn, I'm going to have to ask you to leave the room and not take anything with you. Captain Brass needs to ask you a few questions."

"About what?"

"There was a robbery at a convenience store called Stop-n-Go. We have reason to believe you played a part in it."

"I…That's…I couldn't have," Chloe frowned. She took the badge from Shane—who was vociferous in his protest about his mommy giving it back _now_—and handed it back to Brass as she covered Shane's mouth with her hand.

"Your fingerprints were found at the scene, on an eighty-forty Mini Cougar F Beretta. It's a gun."

"I know what that is."

"Do you?"

"Yeah. A girl can't know about guns?"

"Ms. Haydn?" Brass said. He gestured towards the door. "Shall we?"

Chloe shot a sharp look at Warrick and exited the room, holding Shane by the hand. Warrick shook his head and sighed. Then he opened his field kit and got to work.

"So, Ms Haydn," Brass took out his notepad and a pen. "You're a gal who knows about guns?"

"Yeah," Chloe said, nodding non-chalantly. "My father was a firm believer in having girls as well as boys be knowledgeable in the field of firearms." She leaned against the silk wall. Shane wandered up and down the hallway and she kept a close eye on him. "He started training me when I was seven."

"Do you own any guns?" Brass asked.

"Yes. I do."

"You do?"

"Well, technically, I don't own them. They're all registered to my father. George Haydn. He passed away this past winter. He left all his guns to me. I have all the permits back home. We have four rifles, two pistols and three shotguns. Shane George Jackson!" she said harshly. "Don't you _dare_ knock on that door!"

Shane sheepishly pulled his fist back from midair and stuffed it into the pocket of his khaki slacks. "Wasn't gonna," he mumbled.

"Where are the guns kept?" Brass asked.

"In a locked cabinet in the basement. Impossible for a four year old to break into," Chloe added. "Shane. I am warning you. Put your hand on the door and my hand will be on your backside."

"Does anyone go into the gun closet?"

"Not since my father died. Before that, it was open almost every day. He and I would do a little target practice in our backyard."

"How much do you know about guns?"

"I know what I should. How to clean, assemble, disassemble. Basic knowledge. I know about a lot of guns, which is why I know what a Beretta is. However, I'm more comfortable with rifles, that's what I learned on and what I'm comfortable with. I wasn't trained—my father insisted he teach me everything instead of taking me to a range. I've won a few competitions in riflery in the past—I was county champ when I was fourteen."

"Pretty impressive. When was the last time you actually _fired_ a weapon?"

"It's been a good six years."

"Six?"

"There was a girl I knew in Arizona who was killed six years ago, by a stray bullet outside her house."

"Did you feel responsible?"

"No," Chloe said, horrified. "Annelise Parkinson lived across town, nowhere near where I had been shooting. I just got so nervous I put down my rifle and haven't picked it up since."

"Okay. What can you tell us about the Stop-n-Go robbery?"

Chloe told her story. She had been jogging, needed some "feminine products", and went inside. While she was shopping, she heard gunshots and ducked down. As she hit, she heard several more shots, a lot of screaming and shouting and then she saw something fly through the air. The gun ended up in front of her and she grabbed it for protection. She didn't fire. She didn't see much of anything. When everything was quiet, Chloe dropped the gun and left the store, not looking around her. She just ran.

"I was terrified. I wasn't thinking. I know I should have called someone but…I was just terrified. I just wanted to be back here, safe with my son."

Brass pursed his lips as he wrote down what Chloe told him. He had a feeling he believed what she was saying.

Warrick was having no luck in Chloe's hotel room. So far there was nothing. No GSR, no cash, no blood…yet.

Clothing was sparse, naturally, which made his job easier. Jeans and t-shirts were many, and he bagged the shorts and sweatshirt he'd seen Chloe wearing in the surveillance video. He shifted through the contents of a shoebox lying on the dresser containing several pieces of jewelry and a diary. Then Warrick poked into the closet and found two pairs of sneakers. They were both feminine styles—not to mention one was trimmed in pink—and he became confused. Didn't Brass say Chloe was here with her boyfriend, too? So far he'd only seen things of Chloe's and Shane's.

Keeping this in mind, he picked up the pink-trimmed sneakers. They were really more of a running/athletic shoe, with the soles well-faded, like they'd been worn a lot. Then he examined them more closely and found small stains. Blood stains. The sneakers were splattered with them, plus a few large streaks on the outer sides.

"Just like my grandmother said, pink and red clash," he muttered to himself as he swabbed them. He tested them quickly with the phenolphthalein which revealed the blood on the shoes matched Adrian Lowe's. He bagged the shoes quickly.

Warrick didn't find a gun or even gunshot residue, which supported the theory that Chloe neither owned nor shot the Beretta. When he entered the bathroom, there was nothing suspicious, considering the fact it was a hotel bathroom and it _was_ cleaned daily. Simple toiletries were scattered here and there: razors, deodorant, soap, etc.

He ducked into the cabinet beneath the sink, found the usual—extra towels, extra washcloths, extra toilet paper. All the way in the corner was an open box of tampons, with a white envelope sticking up out of it. Knitting his brow, he plucked the envelope from the box. It felt thick. Crouching on the bathroom floor, Warrick flipped open the flap of the envelope.

"Whoa," his eyes widened as he counted the singles, fives, tens and twenties. It was about five hundred dollars. The stolen money from Stop-n-Go totaled about two hundred. "God-damn."

Warrick knew he was holding Chloe's fate in his fingers. Along with this and the blood on her shoe, it's very possible she could be an accomplice.

"Man oh man. Grissom's niece just went from witness to suspect."


	25. The Slap

Catherine, Grissom, Nick and Sara awaited the return of Warrick from Chloe Haydn's hotel room impatiently. They all had their separate moods and they were clashing.

Catherine was mad at Grissom: he wasn't saying anything to defend his mood, nor would he give her any answers to why he was being unusually stubborn.

Grissom was mad at himself: he didn't know what to do about the whole Chloe/Adrian/Nicolette situation or how to talk to anyone about it.

Nick was mad at Catherine _and_ Grissom: the first for leaving him high and dry with processing Ziegler's evidence; the latter for making him do _his_ part at Las Vegas Medical.

Sara was mad at Warrick: he had treated her coldly when she asked to tagalong on the Chloe Haydn investigation, claiming he had strict orders from Grissom.

On top of all of this anger, nobody could figure out what the hell was wrong with Grissom, who wasn't talking to anyone now and holed up inside his shell like a hermit crab, and this turned most of the animosity from the other three towards their boss, in a "shoot the author" fashion.

The four just sort of stared at each other with murderous undertone. They were all tense and the tension was building on top of Grissom himself who felt the weight of it every time one of his team members gave him a sideways glance. He already knew how Catherine felt about his mood.

Warrick entered the board room in which the rest of the team was sitting. He could practically see the hostility shooting across the room. It was like static electricity.

"Whoa," he said. "Is this CSI or an oil painting?"

"Oh, Warrick," Grissom said, standing. "Good. You're here. Now we can proceed with all the catching up we have to do."

"Catching up on what? How about sleep?" Nick yawned. "You really had to drag me all the way up to Las Vegas Medical? I got like no sleep last night. I had to question Adrian Lowe and then come back here and finish the processing…"

"Yeah, Grissom," Catherine sat up. "Why _did_ you leave Las Vegas Medical in such a hurry last night?"

All eyes were now on Grissom, even Sara and Warrick. He began to feel uncomfortable—but if he revealed everything now, he knew he had to toss himself off the case and if he didn't, the department would.

"Can we get this done, please?" Grissom folded his arms over his chest. "Warrick, have a seat. We need to discuss all our new information. Who would like to do the honors? Catherine?"

"Well, when I talked to Marquita Dali," Catherine began, "she gave me the description of the shooter."

"Adrian Lowe gave me one, too," Nick said.

"She said he was a young male, dressed all in black and wearing large reflective sunglasses."

"That's the jist of what Adrian told me. Actually, his words were: 'a Matrix cast member wannabe'."

Grissom gave a small chuckle. Adrian had basically told that to him, too.

"There was no mention of Chloe Haydn or anyone else fitting her description," Catherine continued. "I don't think she had any involvement in the robbery."

"Well, I found an envelope in Chloe's hotel room," Warrick said. "It has about five hundred dollars in it. How much was missing from Stop-n-Go?"

"Two hundred," Grissom said softly. He had a sinking feeling in his chest. Had Chloe lied to him about where she'd gotten all that money?

Suddenly, Greg burst into the room. "Grissom!" he exclaimed, a worried look on his face, a Burger King bag in hand.

Grissom sat up, "Yes, Greg?"

"Your niece is here…with her boyfriend. It looks like trouble, sir, you might want to see this…"

* * *

"Chloe, I know you have the money, damn it!" growled Walker.

"No, I don't," Chloe said calmly.

"Give me the money."

"Walker, I don't have any money."

"I saw you put that precious envelope of yours in your suitcase, so don't bullshit me, Chloe."

"Fuck you!"

A sharp slap. Grissom actually jumped when he saw it. Greg had departed, leaving Grissom in a secluded corner where he could observe the goings-on. According to Greg, he had been on his way back from getting a bite to eat when he saw Chloe walk in, followed moments later by Walker. Now, as Grissom watched, the slap that he had witnessed infuriated him. He saw a man raise his hand to a woman who he swore never to hurt again.

"Hey!" Grissom called out angrily. He stalked over and saw Walker's grip tighten around Chloe's bicep.

"Get outta here, this doesn't concern you," Walker snapped.

"Gil, it's okay," Chloe whispered, but something in her voice, her eyes and the way her cheek was reddening told Grissom to stay put.

"Chloe, Walker, why don't you guys come to my office," he said in a calm, easy voice, "and we can talk this out."

"No," Walker said harshly, jerking Chloe towards him. "Chloe's coming back to the Rhapsody with me. We have money matters to discuss."

"Money matters?" Grissom crinkled his brow. "What do you mean?"

"This little chick here's been holdin' out on me," Walker growled. He now had Chloe by the collar of her t-shirt like a disobedient child in one hand and her wrist in another. He looked as if he could snap it at any moment. "I saw you put that precious little envelope of yours in your suitcase, Chloe, don't fucking lie to me."

Walker tightened his grip and jerked her a little. Chloe squeaked in pain.

"Let go of her!" Grissom angrily shoved Walker away from his niece. Walker began to charge at him but Chloe stepped in-between them.

"Walker, _STOP_!" she exclaimed forcefully.

"Chloe, I swear to fucking God, if you don't move out of my way—"

"That's _it_," Grissom snapped. He himself moved Chloe out of the way and glared at Walker. "I'm calling in the police captain and the four of us are going into my office and discussing this like _adults_."

"Whatever," mumbled Walker.

"Where's Shane?" Grissom asked Chloe in a soft voice as he led the way to his office.

"At the hotel, with a babysitter," she replied.

"How did this escalate?" Grissom gestured back towards Walker, who was gloomily following them.

"He came back to the hotel room, looking for money," Chloe said, "you know, the rainy-day fund? I told him I didn't have it and I left. I came here to get you, so you could help me, and he followed.

"Gil, I'm so scared."

"I know. It's okay," Grissom said, patting her shoulder. "It's going to be okay."


End file.
